Rusting Project: Meow Box

Metal candy box, vinegar, photo frame, tissue paper

Dimensions variable

2018

About memory

Rusting a metal candy box, time is compressed from its original length, from normal time duration needed of a few days or months, to just half an hour time.

Proposing time is a relative concept( philosophically and scientifically), and memory is an event, which means action frames with time (picture * time) , we can derived that memory is relative.

And I can say they are fragments too, of course, we all know we cannot store that large amount of information is our brain, to where we choose and modify the fragments of moment we needed, then they turn into memories. But with the fact that they are relatively selected and store; all of our “memories”... are not really something that had passed away and lived in a form of picturesque frame in our brain, they are customised, recreated, distorted in a way that they change with us. In which I can say, there is no “truth” in our memories: they are something that help us to live in dignity, hope and illusion of truthfulness; whereas the old memories ( childhoods, teenagers, early days) are actually just repeatedly happening in a contemporary form with our life: they revive every day, moments, seconds… to help us define who we are.

My metal candy boxes

There were only one metal candy boxes happened in my childhood, it was manufactured in Japan (most of these kind of metal candy boxes are made in Japan, never see other kind of source). They were kind of a symbol of fancy and beloved to me, so even though I don’t like to eat sweets a lot, I was really happy to own one at the time. This box was a statement, that I am an insider.

Insider

We are constantly defining groups and fitting into essentially categorised relationship. Instinct fear of being left out, or feeling lost, is the drive of why we laugh with people we don't like; help the boss that we hate and stand with the values that we knew that were wrong. But we know others are lying, that they know we are lying too. We are in the constant play of "staying" with each other in an imitation of a intimate relationship. It is sad, but man is an island within that "not an island".

....to be cont.

next time.