The act of remembering

Mary Lemley, 2002

The act of remembering, going down Memory Lane, corresponds with the research into memory, attention and consciousness that I am engaged in for a new piece of work.

A beginner's knowledge and enthusiasm in the exploration of the map of the brain has a parallel with my own physical exploration of an O.S. Map of Wiltshire eight years ago.

Maps are only possibility on paper needing to be sketched out, then fleshed out to become internal. It is good to start the journey with simplicity. Brain maps make use of cross-sections to reveal the functions of brain. The cut clarity of cross-sections I can compare to walking the ley line in Listening Ground. Yet to let go of the sliced image and try to encompass the whole pattern of brain activity, is to glimpse the exquisite phenomena that is within this moment of thought. That is what I aimed at in Lost Acres. By tracing and re-tracing the countless combinations of routes and places that the guidebook ensured – walking the work would generate long term memories. Functioning as a kind of metaphor of the mind while altering its internal pathways.

For an audience, Listening Ground / Lost Acres was a 100 square mile memory theatre of place, which they had to enact. The further they went, the more time they took to trod the map, the closer they came to the work itself. It was not to be found in a mere three hours. Listening Ground / Lost Acres was elusive, being the sum of its markers and listening posts.

I am not sure if anyone, including Graeme, made their way through all the paths to all the places on our map. I almost did. Is it possible that Listening Ground / Lost Acres never truly existed? Maybe it is still only a map waiting to live on in another's consciousness.