In collaboration with the artist Joëlle Dubois, ‘The memory machine’ is a two-screen video installation centred around the loss of her mother to Alzheimers.

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This two-screen video installation creates an immersive, reflective space, in which the screens function as sculptral floating objects pusitioned opposite each other. In an endless loop, images unfold, guiding the viewer to the subconscious and fluctuating between outward action and inner thought.

 

The first screen draws you into a cycle of relentless, almost Sisyphian actions. The character (Dubois) is caught in a constant attempt to reach something that remains just out of grasp. he repetitive gestures seem to represent a plea or a desperate attempt to make contact with something or someone beyond. As if the movements are meant to summon something buried deep within memory. Dubois reads excerpts from her diary from 2020-2024 which have evolved into a meditative mantra in the audio of this video.

 

The images on the second screen are more contemplative: they appear and dissolve like memories surfacing—fluid, shifting, almost hypnotic. While the first video approaches memory through physical action, the second reflects how our mind reshapes and distorts recollections through a blend of archival, associative images, home videos and a brown noisescape. 

 

The spatial setup invites a non-linear experience: the viewer moves back and forth between the two projections, in a twilight zone where past and present, action and reflection, blend together.

 

The installation invites remembering, but simultaneously confronts the fleeting nature of those same memories. In this way, the artists explore the power and powerlessness of holding on and letting go, and the quiet grief that comes with the fading of connection, especially in the case of a disease like Alzheimer’s.

 

text: Patrick Ronse

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