Processed Memory

Some Experimental Photographs by Remy Dean

‘Pompidou View’ (extant 2012)

Particularly today, the photograph has become synonymous with memory. This connection is overtly used in advertising campaigns. Both the photograph and the memory are parts of a process, and these processes are always ongoing. They both involve the act of seeing: utilising photochemical reactions (on film, photo-sensor, or retina) and an attempt to ‘remember’ using chemicals (print, screen or cortex).

‘Crossings: Newport Transporter Bridge’ (extant 2012) was a featured work as part of ‘The Story Behind a Photograph’ at The Photographers’ Gallery, London

This series of images, which you are now adding to your own memories, grew from an accident. An album of family photographs I had taken in the 1980s was forgotten about and left in the bottom of a box in a damp cellar. Over time, the action of the elements ate into the surface of some of the photographs and ‘destroyed’ the image. Amongst these pictures was the last portrait I had taken of my grandfather, and also a photograph I had won my first competition with.

‘Where We Used to Play’ features on the cover of the book, ‘The Race Glass’ (2014) a short story collection | ‘Frank’s Cat’ (c.1983 — 2013)

I liked how the ‘destroyed’ pictures had not remained passive, they had become organic and recorded…