After given several tutor briefs, I choose traces. It asked us to explore the notion of ‘the trace’ through research, personal reflection, and visual experimentation. Starting off I used the quote given by Walter Benjamin ‘To live is to leave traces’ to make me think what a trace could be.
According to Derrida, the concept of ‘trace’ is the most minimal form of life. My insight on what a trace could be is a memory, something you leave on someone. After looking at the brain and how it works, memory is not stored in one part of the brain, but distributed throughout the cortex. Memory storage is an ongoing process reclassification resulting in continuous changes and parallel processing information in our brains.
I started researching what a trace is within different cultures. In the Arab Culture, there is a saying “الأرواح جنود مجندة“ meaning “The souls are like conscripted soldiers”. There is no one way of looking at this because in the Arabic language one word could mean several things, hence a full saying could translate to many meanings. When souls have entered bodies they may recognise one another from the past and may be on friendly terms or otherwise based on that past experience. It also signifies how good people are inclined towards other good people, and evil people are similarly inclined towards other evil people.
The Japanese culture has a similar belief “The Red Thread of fate”. This myth is that the gods tie an invisible red cord around the little finger of those who are destined to meet one another; similar to the westerns concept of “soulmates”. Those connected are destined lovers, regardless of time, space or circumstances. This cord could stretch and tangle but never break.
James Eads, a surrealistic impressionist who explores ideas of the soul and human connection. His visual impersonate the concepts of traces.
Refik Anadol, Media Artist & Designer, explores the materiality of remembering by offering new insights into the representational possibilities of EEG data collected on the neural mechanisms of cognitive control.
I started to sketch out some of the visuals I might illustrate. I knew I wanted to challenge myself and use photoshop to create “image manipulation”. By incorporated heads, it reflects the concept of the psychology behind the souls and hands reflect the concept of body communication and how this type of communication leave traces on the souls of others.
After finding the appropriate images online, I started to play around with different tools on photoshop to see which visual represents my concept in the best way.
Following the final visuals, I started to experiment with different backgrounds until I found the most appropriate one. I focused my search on space as relates to the concept of Trace.
Depending on visual, I used the different layers and filters to experiment how it would look like.
To make it more personal, I used an image that a captured memory that became a trace on me and played with it to create a background for my visuals. As a final image, it doesn’t look visually pleasing compared to the space background.
My final outcome created consisted of a series of visuals that represent the concept of trace.
