Oculus
2 Somnambulism
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(from the notes)
Part 2 Somnambulism : On the nature of memory in relation to existence.
Excerpt from Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1999, p.9."The cradle rocks above an abyss, and
common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light
between two eternities of darkness." Considered by some to be the
greatest opening line of a memoir in the English language. We
can also compare it to the famous line of Pozzo, from Waiting for
Godot by Samuel Beckett. "Pozzo: (Calmer.) They give birth astride
of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more. (He
jerks the rope.)" Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot: Tragicomedy in
2 Acts. New York: Grove Press, 1956, p.103.
In the eighteenth century, somnambulism held a larger, more
general connotation of memory alienation–of being cut off
from the conscious awareness of one's own experiential
memories–sleepwalking being just one example.
Not fully
formed and not yet 'awake' (as in conscious of the larger world),
a sleeping child becomes a metaphor for our own sleeping
awareness. My last book ends with an image of my son
slumbering (A New History Of Photography: The World Outside
and the Pictures In Our Heads. Koln, White Press: 2008). These
moments of reprieve are times we can easily reflect (and project)
upon. Looking closely at our lives and the ones we love, we see
vulnerability, innocence; we acknowledge mortality.
A personal note:
Somnambulism: I started to make the photographs of sleeping
children with the help of their parents while the Nabokov quote
was firmly planted in the back of my mind. Meanwhile, the world,
as I once knew it, had unraveled. I still acted as if things were as
they had been. I was the sleepwalker moving through the bedrooms
of these still and silent children, all tucked in their beds. Eventually,
I came to realize that seeing was, in many ways, only 'believing.'
In retrospect it is of little wonder that I should have been so moved by the Nabokov quote. I saw an abyss opening up.
Oculus, a photographic book about images, memory, and the metaphor of light.
96 pages; 35 plates.
Published by Noorderlicht.
Purchase
