Memories Go in the Memory Hole
How do we record memory? The classic method is to just tell somebody else, so it can be passed down as oral tradition. It can be written down, or demonstrated in a work of visual art. Advances in technology gave people the option of taking photographs and capturing sounds to record and supplement memory, and the consumerization of information technology put camcorders in the hands of many laypeople. This is where we get the phenomenon of home video. There are countless weddings, birthday parties, dance recitals, soccer games, first words and steps, all immortalized on VHS, gathering dust behind someone’s stereo, or in the archives of something like America’s Funniest Home Videos, alongside quirky and bizarre behaviors and performances by family, friends, or the videographer themself–that weird dance your uncle does when he’s had a few glasses of wine, that song your son performs playing the kazoo and drumming with his butt–shot and sent in in an attempt to get on TV. What will happen to them? Some of these videos must enter the Memory Hole: a channel on YouTube that compiles home videos into segments from thirty seconds to two minutes long, using tense electronic music and jumpy, distorted editing to emphasise the surreal, unsettling nature and underlying sense of dread in each composition. I’d really love to see whatever archive the editors have access to, because the videos they manage to source are really weird–like grown men meowing in synch at the camera for a minute and a half weird. I’ve included links to some of my favorites: a redneck in a bathtub delivering rhymes about toys, Valentine’s Day videos paired with clips of humans kissing animals, a supercut of people dancing and then of vomiting. Memory Hole shows off the strange imagination of everyday people, but the setting isn’t humorous. It’s actually really terrifying, and in this way I find Memory Hole videos closer to actual memory than your typical home movie, which is limited to a direct audiovisual record. Real memories are subjective. They contain omissions, details that don’t line up, and feelings that can’t easily be expressed through sound and light alone. Through editing, Memory Hole is able to splice in imagery, add atmosphere and reset tone, which is often lost in the transition from the moment to the objective record. Memory Hole wants us to look back at the not-so-distant past and think, “Wow, people are really odd,” and to be disquieted by it.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fluffer Video

Valentines Day

Dance Til U Puke