Screen Memories

Verónica Losantos

Sigmund Freud gave the name ‘screen memories’ to a particular kind of childhood memory. He distinguished between apparently indifferent and circumstantial childhood memories and those he identified as important and emotionally relevant. In this process, which is due to resistance in the conscious reproduction of memory, the latter are veiled by less significant memories, leading to mistakes and falsification.
In her series Screen Memories, Verónica Losantos addresses this idea and tries to find out to what extent photography falsifies memory, or if it can be manipulated. She narrates a personal conflict with her father’s absence, inquiring into the relationship between photography and the process of memory. What happens to the memories that were not recorded in pictures? What happens when we look at a picture depicting someone who has become almost a total stranger? Can we change our own feelings towards an absent person through photographs? To answer these questions, Losantos staged her memories of her father and created new ones, as though she were creating conscious ‘screen memories’.