#roynae mayes

[roynae]

It was the beginning of climate change and the end of humanity. 

Embroiled as we were, we could find no cause to resist our situation.

In a last ditch attempt to possess the earth's beauty, we rode the sky to exotic destinations; hastening their destruction.

[roynae]

https://vimeo.com/67095027

[roynae]

If Memory was a Material

Memory is stored in the tangles of neurons in our brain.  We remember the gist of things and use our imagination to fill in our blanks.  They are coloured by our moods.  They are known to shift over time and even the most vivid memory is re-membered ever after each time we return.  We shift them in our favour and they are open to the influence of others around us.

I see them as knotty strings of sticky goo, tentatively reaching to cling to their neighbours, influenced by their environment and those who enter it. It is like a self serving creature, extremely sensitive and vulnerable, hiding under the bed, or in the closet, whispering stories to help you sleep.

Or perhaps memory is like a shore line. Shifting under the weather of the waves, built up of tiny bits of eroded experience, creating a boarder or definition of what our island looks like.

Maybe memory is like a necklace of chalk beads, some are bigger than others, sharing a common thread.  Each time you wear it, the chalk dust gets all over your clothes and the beads eventually wear down, forcing you to continually replenish the necklace with new beads.

. 

[roynae]

Tick Tock Goes The Clock

Time is a horse that runs through the heart, a horse

Without a rider on a road at night.

The mind sits listening and hears it pass.

Wallace Stevens

The end of this semester draws near.

We collect the fallen leaves and turn them into bronze, destroying and preserving our symbol of the season. 

How to keep snowflakes?

Shelley writes

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: `My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away".

What vanity is there in humans attempts to hold onto what nothing can contain!

I am making in vain. 

But... memory is human.

These are the arguments I have with myself as I begin the end of my bachelors.

[roynae]

Three sets of instructions, delivered in three different methods, to create a dining experience for four. How do we receive information and process it? Which set of instructions takes precedence? How much effort is required to shift attention from the favored input? The Meal delivers all the essential ingredients, but the brain's filters decide what you will make.

[roynae]

On Making Memorials

    Absence is a reminder of presence. The body, an object of change, indents an object’s surface.  The surface becomes a site of memory, altering its meaning. 

  Impressions are made, and we are left with them, memory moulding our unique identities.

  We feel the urge to leave our mark somehow.  To shape something that will be left after we have long gone. 

  It is you who have coloured my world.  It is you and your being that make me shine in your presence.  Without you I am lost.

 Let us make something commemorative.  I want to capture a bit of your essence for I know we don't have long together.  Let us note and celebrate this occasion; let it not be lost like the myriad of other moments that time sends spilling through our clumsy fingers. 

  This object will last.  It will be here after we are gone.  It is solid where we are soft.  It will be a monument for others to see how important you were just to me.