Bernadette Mayer | Memory

Bernadette Mayer
Memory
Planfield, USA: North Atlantic Books, 1975
196 pp., 8.9 x 6.5 x 0.4 cm., softcover
Edition size unknown

Mayer's fifth book began in July of 1971 when she began experimenting with her memory. She shot a roll of 35mm film every day for a month, and kept a rigorous journal. In February of the following year, Memory was shown at 98 Greene Street in New York City: the unedited photographs were mounted on the wall in chronological order, while a recording of narration played over speakers.


“It’s a diary of one month. I wrote incessant notes and made drawings about everything that happened every day.  I wrote down as much as I could without interrupting my life.  It was the month of July, 1971.  I had chosen the month at random without knowing what I would be doing during that month, because I didn’t want to choose a time to do this experiment that would be particularly loaded, or particularly interesting or dull.”

"MEMORY was 1200 color snapshots, 3 x 5, processed by Kodak plus 7 hours of taped narration. I had shot one roll of 35-mm color film every day for the month of July, 1971. The pictures were mounted side by side in row after row along a long wall, each line to be read from left to right, 36 feet by 4 feet. All the images made each day were included, in sequence, along with a 31-part tape, which took the pictures as points of focus, one by one & as taking-off points for digression, filling in the spaces between."

- Bernadette Mayer

The title is long out of print, but last week Siglio Press has released an expanded version, which couples the text and images together for the first time. See next post.