2025.11

My recent preoccupation lingers on the ambivalent feelings that arise while recording. Recording always entails the time it takes to renew it. For instance, a photograph recording an event, text recording the photograph, paper printed with the text, scribbles placed upon the paper—things like these. Between them lie not only measurable time, but also falsehoods, misunderstandings, emotions, and impossible events. They prove what is true while simultaneously proclaiming that truth is something that cannot actually be realized.

I believe that in any way, the past cannot be preserved. What we preserve is the present, which is constantly being renewed. Records and events are always in an incomplete relationship, and between them, subjective interpretation and the mind run rampant. Since private feelings are often volatile or mutable, the complete preservation of an event is impossible. Thus, looking at a photograph and longing for or reminiscing about the moment captured is a rather subtle and peculiar act. Even if that photograph is crumpled or torn. I too feel the desire to preserve certain records or photographs forever, and to exhibit them. Even if ‘it’ belongs to someone else.

'It' becomes an existence that feels like an empty shell yet carries a weighty emotion. ‘Its’ time seeks to hold the past, yet creates the present and moves toward the future. That future is again a time for recalling the past. Instead, the past recalled from the future might be less a time as an event and more a state holding the ‘possibility of a story’.