When describing a certain feeling or sensation can be hard – what about describing how a it looks like? Are memories more than just a set of mundane electric impulses? Do memories have glitches? And is there a way to visualize them?
I tried and shot a plethora of 6k raw footage clips in my studio using various techniques including prisms, holographic foils and coloured lights as well as background projections created in After effects. Looking at the result I immediately felt these clips look different from anything I created before. Some of them look like a glimpse into a far away past. Events that slipped into deep consciousness. Like memories that lift me up or flashes remembering me of my childhood. Some trigger certain smells or synaesthetically make me see the music I have been listening to in very particular situations. Some of them even look like what is called photopsia – the discharge of electric impulses due to an irritated retina caused by a pull in vitreoretinal attachments or migraine.
Obviously everyone has experienced something in their lives that they will never forget. Be it haunting, soothing, inspiring or disturbing. Some of those memories hold us hostage. Some frame our presence and future. However, many ’coreMEMories’ can not be accessed by our conscious minds but they still deeply shape the way we are.
I became fascinated with the idea of finding a way to retrieve these memories from our neural system and translate them into visual artefacts we can actually watch, examine and study.
This is how ’coreMEMories’ became an intimate experimental collaboration with Maximilian Oprishka (OPDN.tv) and swedish-american creative powerhouse Toros Köse attempting to make nerve impulses visible. While Maximilian created a gripping audio piece Toros envisioned a fascinating and very personal visual remix of ‘coreMEMories’.
I reached out to Toros back in 2021 with a concept to collaborate on ‘coreMEMories’ and I was beyond happy he agreed to come up with his personal take on it. Toros built a custom After Effects setup with cascading turbulence and glitch effects he could run the original footage through which gave these clips a completely new look and feel.
The result is a set of four pastiches with an ethereal yet almost oil painting like appeal.
Lithuanian artist Maximilian Oprishka of OPDN.tv approached me in early 2022 suggesting to collaborate on an experimental piece and I could not have been luckier. I was very familiar with Maximilian’s brilliant skills as a motion graphics designer but who could have known that he is one of the very few artists on earth to also be an excellent sound composer.
While hesitant to make this project a short film Maximilian encouraged me to send him a quick edit of my favorite ‘coreMEMories’ shots and the result blew me away. It is safe to say that Maximilian brought ‘coreMEMories’ to live.
“I was binge watching this and somehow I started to imagine that this is what happens when our synapses are firing (…) It was a total pleasure working on this, the visuals are so intense yet soothing, and it all makes sense in the frame of ‘memories’, gets your imagination running miles. I really wanted to write something that would be on the edge, that it would feel visceral, yet gave you a sense of space and movement, but what was my utmost sort of starting point, i wanted it to feel very lively, not overpolished.”
– Maximilian Oprishka
Concept & Design
Nicolas Arnold
Digital Artists
Nicolas Arnold
Toros Köse
Composing & Sound Design
Maximilian Oprishka / OPDN.tv
Editing
Nicolas Arnold
Maximilian Oprishka
