Exclusive Memory

Description:

While in residence at Western Front, Tom Sherman produced Exclusive Memory, a video work that furthered his investigations into psychoeconomic theory—the study of how economic conditions determine psychological states, and vice versa. Sherman was particularly interested in how the individual determines the relative value of their personal information, and how this is influenced by human-machine relationships. 

Exclusive Memory is based on excerpts of a six-hour monologue by Sherman to a machine: a computer-based video sensing robotic entity of the artist’s own creation. Sherman is observed providing an experience transfer to his machine in a conversational monologue. Sherman assumes his machine is interested in everything—although credit card histories and all forms of dead animals emerge as the machine’s primary obsessions.

The final installation took the form of three edited hour-long tapes: Exclusive Memory 4-9-19, Exclusive Memory 5-8-16, and Exclusive Memory 7-11-12. The black-and-white recordings show Sherman’s talking head sharing the screen with electronic equipment, plants, and another simultaneous videotaped view of himself. 

Video documentation is available upon request.