meghan tomeo: childhood series

Childhood Series: 3 videos Series, original audio & noise) approx. 25 minutes, 2007
Id Rub My Eyes To See Stars, Morning Lawn and Upstairs Rooms, Laughing Eyes

videos are a selection of two of the three videos from the project

The childhood series appropriates memories that are not directly mine, but indirect memories from home videos my parents shot while my sister and I grew up. In home video documents the view of others can be reached and lived through vicariously. Moments of the past can be accessed, but the larger view is lost. Rather than try to find a set of unwavering truths with these videos, the series explores like an impressionist painting, the subjectivities of perception. The videos live in the consciousness of a child, performing myself at eight years of age; moments of the past are revisited and recreated in new life. In the videos awareness of the past is filtered through the memories of others and archival home video. Recollection of certain events may not be as fully intact as the private emotions and perceptions retained from childhood. The videos investigate the struggle between one's own understanding of reality and the authority of socialized information. The series exhibits a longing for states of clarity where there are reachable and solid truths. It explores the unreliability of language and the almost arbitrary labeling of truths unto the world. It celebrates the complexity of perception, living, and slipping of time while indulging in the aspects of dream within reality.