How do we keep memories, those precious moments of time that may not be lost?
Is it the words of loved ones or friends, which wecan hear so clearly even years after they were spoken? Is it the soundtrack of an era? A collage of music, fragments of conversation and the ambient background of a special place? Or is it a mental image: based on real events or on those from our dreams. We all tick differently, our imaginations and memories visualized, stored and processed in a way which is as unique and different as every human.
Images, be it those etched onto cellulose strips and dunked into stinking chemical baths, those ‘written’ by digital sensors, those imagined by our restless amygdala’s or those generated by AI: they play a huge part in documenting and communicating the human experience.
We consume and process vast quantities of them: a ‘short’ 1.5-hour movie comprises of 150,000+ individual pictures. A walk along a city street or through a forest yields a stream of sensory inputs vying for our valuable attention. Our ability and desire to process them seems limitless: we greedily snatch a chance to suck more data from our phones whenever an opportunity presents itself: waiting at the dentist, sitting on the train, surreptitiously under the dinner table…..
Let’s be clear: no-one at HORAGE wishes the clocks to be turned back (unless we’re adjusting our watches). We do not pine for a bygone era: nostalgia is a dangerous companion. The democratization of technology has brought mankind vast benefits….. along with challenges: we should reap these benefits and be mindful of the pitfalls. Navigating this journey requires an awareness of history to temper our appetite for more, more, more.
We watch lovers are in a position of some privilege: not just to afford life’s luxuries but because we embody this crossroads. Our passion suggests an awareness for measuring that precious commodity called time. Keeping traditions and craftsmanship alive is more than wistful nostalgia: we honour past achievements and mankind’s ingenuity as we eagerly look towards the future. Each tick-tock of our timepieces generates a new image and with it another journey, adventure and memory get a little closer.
Tell us about some of your memories related to time.
Until next time...