Image (of) Memory

The image of the past is burned into the body, where it leaves a wound of virtual past, from which time tears the meat of actuality. The images of memories are brought to life in the spiral of time as sequences of memories that emerge in new actuality. In his unforgettable film-essay Sunless, Chris Marker, a master of human consciousness, unfolds the image of memory as a multidimensional image of thought, which has a myriad of inputs and outputs and a myriad of topological points that can enable emergence and revival of mental representations of the past. The model of making the memory, remembering and fading into oblivion, is built with montage and narrative which function as reflective consciousness; in this way the structure of the film and the thought of the film are expressing the same image of memory. The image of memory is thus a film that is already remembering itself or, better, an image of consciousness that is reflecting upon itself.

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