H.M.
Void. Darkness. You realize you wander landing on an unknown place. Seven seconds only and any attempt of fixing memories vanishes without leaving any trace of it. H.M. like Henry Gustav Molaison, the most famous and studied case of retrograde and anterograde amnesia in the world. H.M. as empty initials such as many other ones who have been forgotten. Those initials tell stories of cerebral accidents, failed surgical interventions or infective or viral diseases. It’s a paradoxical “unknown understanding”: I am aware of not being aware but I cannot give it a shape and I cannot recall where it is coming from. For those amnesiacs it is vital to take notes, day in, day out, in order to recall what they need to remember. They find themselves perfectly playing a piano but they do not recall where this knowledge comes from. An astonishing execution which seems to remind them that “something else” was there. Before. On a parallel and far away piece of life. With this project I explore the mysterious equations of human mnemonic system and the scaring implications coming for its loss. It’s a very recent field of science which still holds huge unexplored areas. It gives us a feeling of being powerless, naked, stuck in front of the magnificence and terrifying beauty of our brain.
“Can you imagine what it’s like to have one night 20 years long with no dream?
That’s what it’s been like. Just like death.
No difference between day and night, no thoughts at all. In that sense it has been totally painless which is not something which is very desirable really, is it? ‘Cause it’s precisely like death.”
H.M. has been shortlisted on the following awards:
LUMA Dummy Award - Les Rencontres de la Photographie - France
Photometria International Photography Festival - Greece
Fotografia Europea - Italy
Festival Fotografia Italiana - Italy
To know more about a real story check this out:
moreHM_FullHD.mp4 (13.79 MB)