Julie Rafalski
A memory image - a look out the window in its aluminum frame, dirty with black dust, past its dried raindrops onto birch forests rooted in sand, flashing by at a great speed, punctuated by railway poles. The momentary experience was nothing special then. It had no value. But many years later, that moment, when seen from this standpoint- this moment and this space (open window, computer keyboard, desk, a motorbike sound outside) - it becomes meaningful. Not in itself but because in that moment sound all those years in between. The years that come after it, shape it to a certain extent. It acquires meaning- a meaning both mysterious, ancient and full of expectation. The past moment is worth thinking about because I cannot describe it and cannot understand why it holds so much weight.
Past events are reconstructed, once they pass through that substance called time, that never leaves anything the same in its wake.
Looking back across all that space - to another memory image- sun-drenched roof in Vienna 12 years ago. It appears now like an apparition, a foreign substance before me. I evoke it and am being haunted by it. I am performing it and I am watching it being performed. I am actor and audience, at the same time.