Video

Memories From the Department of Amnesia

Janice Tanaka

1990, 12:50 minutes, colour/B&W, English

TAPECODE 254.05

Memories From The Department of Amnesia is about the death of my mother, the process of grieving, the way in which memory operates and the emotions it rouses. It enunciates the painful phases of grieving; the claustrophobic results of dealing with the inevitability of death; the transitional void where one is lost between the comfortable orientation of ones world and nothing; and a new sense of clarity where images from the past resurface from the abyss of forgetfulness. This piece is an elegy to my mother whose attempts at balance and security were constantly disrupted by social, cultural, political and personal forces beyond her control.

Un homme conduit sa bicyclette et traverse un véritable dédale d'échoppes de restauration. Dans le même temps, la bande illustre le deuil vécu par l'artiste lors de la disparition de sa mère. Memories from the Department of Amnesia, obsèdant et évocateur, est un voyage à travers les souvenirs et les images.

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Critical Writing

The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses
by Laura U. Marks. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2000.
The Politics of Video Memory: Electronic erasures and inscriptions
by Marita Sturken. Resolutions: Contemporary Video Practices, 1996. Minneapolis and St. Paul: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
Mom's The Word
by Barbara Osborn. AfterImage, Jan. 1991, v. 18, no. 6.