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Burning Memory
TCB art inc.
Imperial Slacks, Sydney
Mnemotech, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts





Burning Memory employs the metaphor of a housefire to investigate psychological space in cinema. The installation examines psychological ploys of film, such as montage sequences. It recreates the intensity of cinematic projection, in that light appears to come from within or beyond the screen, and the image of the burning house is a brilliant subject for fire has great visual and chromatic intensity.



Fire is time-based. It can be shown in its various stages of destruction, in a play on the dramatic restaging of the event. A small black and white video in the entrance introduces the burning house as a historical event, to explored it as a cathartic image in film. The video comprises a sequence of scenes from documentary footage of fires in Australia (Ash Wednesday) and burning houses in films, such as Rebecca, Gilbert Grape and Badlands. Theatrical lights were set up to intensify the light depicted in the oil paintings.