Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.20.1604011021040.20784@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.wvu.edu>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Obdurate Memorial
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2016 10:23:37 -0400 (EDT)
Obdurate Memorial http://www.alansondheim.org/mem9.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/mem1.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/mem2.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/mem3.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/mem4.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/mem5.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/mem6.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/mem7.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/mem8.jpg Our cat Ossi Oswalda died, as many of you know about three months ago; the central portrait in the images is her, in better days, when we were living in Brooklyn. Her glance is uncanny, a punctum which haunts me; when I work online, I feel an obdurate relation to the image, unwilling to cover it fully, as if she were present. This haunting is a weight, a memorial of sorts; I'm not yet willing to part with it. Somehow the image keeps her alive for me, a guardian and friend. The dialog between us comes through the pixels. I recognize the fetishistic aspect of my behavior here; I'm bound by it. Here are some images from my work; the windfarm is from a memorial film for my father. At times I live among the trees of death; my own mortality is a selfish obsession that always threatens me.