"...it really matters less whether the initial form into which the artist projects the image is man-made or found. What matters is rather what he can make of it. "

E.H. Gombrich. Art & Illusion. pg.160

If emotions depend on concepts applied to internal states, then culture plays a key role in our emotional lives, by shaping the relevant mental scripts.

Feeling In Situ. Elitza Dermendzhiyska

"The exceptional status of each human being derives from the unique significance of suffering and flourishing in the context of our remembrances of the past and of the memories we have constructed of the future we incessantly anticipate. "

The Strange Order of Things. Antonio Damasio.

"Memory arises not only from experience but from the intercourse of many minds.

... There is no way by which the events of the world can be directly transmitted or recorded in our brains; they are experienced and constructed in a highly subjective way, which is different in every individual to begin with, and differently reinterpreted or re-experienced whenever they are recollected. Our only truth is narrative truth, the stories we tell each other and ourselves - the stories we continually recategorize and refine. Such subjectivity is built into the very nature of memory and follows from its basis and mechanisms in the brains we have."

The River of Consciousness. Oliver Sacks.

"All of these reactions are automatic and largely stereotyped, and are engaged under specific circumstances. (Learning, however, can modulate the execution of the stereotyped pattern. Our laughter or crying plays differently in different circumstances, just as the musical notes that constitute a movement of a sonata can be played in very different ways.)"

Looking for Spinoza (pg 35) Antonio Damasio.

"Feelings of pain or pleasure or some quality in between are the bedrock of our minds. We often fail to notice this simple reality because the mental images of the objects and events that surround us, along with the images of the words and sentences that describe them, use up so much of our overburdened attention. But there they are, feelings of myriad emotions and related states, the continuous musical line of our minds, the unstoppable humming of the most universal of melodies that only dies down when we go to sleep, a humming that turns into all-out singing when we are occupied by joy, or a mournful requiem when sorrow takes over."

Looking for Spinoza. Joy, Sorrow and The Feeling Brain. Antonio Damasio. 2003

“The brain interprets the World as patterns of energy that stimulate the senses, generating signals that stream up into our brain where they are analysed and stored. With experience, these patterns become learned so that the brain knows how to respond…” 

 Source: The Domesticated Brain. Bruce Hood

"When Jean Cocteau revisited his childhood home, no memories stirred until he crouched low and draggged a stick along the wooden fence. And then the memories came flooding back. "

Source: How to Make a Human Being. Christopher Potter

"Emotions filter the nature and accuracy of what is remembered."

Behave. Robert Sapolsky.

The digital and the devices that plug us into the various virtual worlds, break down our capacity to be attentive and to concentrate on activities that have depth of meaning. Digital technology and the so-called tools that have arisen for the masses in the guise of ‘apps’ - toys for the most part - steal from us vital human experiences. With the digital, we need only the eyes to divert our attention and very quickly we zap the rest. For light is the quickest of mediums, it is direct, imposing even. The digital provides a sensational world that so often lacks the vital sensations we seek and cherish as humans.

"Analogies in thought. Human conversations are analogies. Understanding, according to Hofstadter is about making connections to our experiences through reality - we see things as something - a hunk of wood AS a table. Analogies are the "fuel and fire" of our thinking processes. Analogy is a logical form of thinking through which we make connections with our current knowledge - something is inferred to be similar with another in a certain respect. When we come across something 'new', we make mental maps with our current knowledge in order to attempt to understand this 'new' thing."

The Man Who Would Teach Machines to Think

It is short this thought. Caught in reflection By the river side it undulates A vacillating vagrant amidst  Nature’s grandeur and complexity.

We are but tiny specks in a finite world. Breath with ease that presence profound.

"A thought experiment is a device with which one performs an intentional, structured process of intellectual deliberation in order to speculate, within a specifiable problem domain, about potential consequents (or antecedents) for a designated antecedent (or consequent)" (Yeates, 2004, p. 150). Source: Wikipedia.

The Drone Machine is in part a thought experiment that questions the validity of certain artificial intelligence techniques linked with sentiment and emotion. How is it that we have come to a point in which we can justify the inferences of content by a machine? Sentiment analysis and emotion tagging are being used widely as a means to scrape and analyse data from the masses. To what extent is this data used and in which contexts?

"Even if you have lofty ideals and written high-minded essays, if you do not form them by means of the essence of virtue, they will end up as personal mettle and spin-offs of technical ability."

"And the great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this,  – that we manufacture everything there except for men; we blanch cotton and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages." The Stones of Venice. John Ruskin. (1851-53).

Is not the cultivating of the self a far better activity towards a path to success than the material gain we are led to believe?

The pressure to perform constantly and unfailingly. Time is ticking away, what is to be done is the opportunity cost of always another possible choice. In some choices we feel less guilt. Why is guilt felt? For pressure comes from within? Is not time spent relaxing a necessary activity too?

Digital memories can not be recalled unsolicited. They are static, fixed bits of data stored away. Human memories are very different, constantly evolving, fading in and out, morphing throughout time. They are the building blocks of our experiences and can be recalled at will but perhaps more importantly, memories are made and are recalled very much through our activities, in response to our environments and in a totally unconscious manner. Our senses are our trackers of memory; sight, touch, smell and sound all become medias and mediums.

How does our memory develop? Why are particular events more memorable than others? Emotional significance? To what extent is memory a defining factor in our present and future state? To what extent is memory transformed, diluted, misinterpreted? How does memory fade with time?

What are the elements in music that can be used to express memory?

To strip down to the bare essentials is an act of defiance in a time where we are asked to produce ever more. And for this reason, it is a difficult act to maintain. In recent times, I have felt a strong urge to do away with not just material clutter, but also mental clutter. A lot of my current thoughts have focused on bringing a certain calm and balance to my life and therefore removing these various sources of clutter. As an exercise and most probably also as a means to maintain such a difficult approach, I have put into practice a series of artistic works that intend to express some underlying themes linked to this effort and indeed in minimal form.