Towards an ecology of memory

We have never been so aware that our present will be a memory in the future.

Revolution taking place today in different fields, from neuroscience to digital memory, are affecting our lives in profound ways and changing the way we understand human memory and preserve and create our memories. All these changes are creating a deepening awareness of memory in our society. However this awareness also brings a growing fear of forgetting and being forgotten.

The aim of the series «The Vertical Horizon» is two fold.  On one hand to explore the growing fear of forgetting in our society  through different perspectives (individual, social and political).  And on the other, to explore how positive forgetting could be, in individual and collective terms, as a way to overcome our fear.

From a geological perspective five hundred years is just a blink of an eye. This perspective should help us accept the fact that in the long term everything we are is condemned to oblivion. This perspective is what gives the name to the series –The Vertical Horizon– and is a crucial idea behind the three main projects that composed the series: Digital Trauma (Video Essay) The Refuge (Film) and One Year Life Strata (Digital Media). 

The Series was developed in the context of a two years Master´s research at the Netherland Film Academy (Amsterdam), where María graduated Cum Laude and won the graduation prize for the best Master project at Amsterdam University of the Arts 2017. 

Special thanks to Eyal Sivan, Mieke Bernik, Sander Blom and Kris Dekker.