We are here with
you
We use your memory
It's not with our language
But through the mind
We speak
We appear
What are you waiting for ?
Know you miss everything
We know what you are
Show the best of you
For the rest of your life
Memory Tapes video collage creates an abstract dialogue from the fragmentation of the movies that consists of. Editing styles of TV series and video clips have been used to create a collapsing narrative into imaginary feelings.
Dialogues and scenes used by the following movies: Pi [Darren Aronofsky, 1998], Videodrome [David Cronenberg, 1983], Blade Runner [Ridley Scott, 1982], 2001: A Space Odyssey [Stanley Kubrick, 1968], Watchmen [Zack Snyder, 2009], Gattaca [Andrew Niccol, 1997], Total Recall [Paul Verhoeven, 1990], Dark City [Alex Proyas, 1998], The Eye [Oxide Pang Chun, Danny Pang, 2002], I am a cyborg, But That's OK [Chan-wook Park, 2006], 1984 [Michael Radford, 1984], Mad Max 2 [George Miller, 1981], The Royal Tenenbaums [Wes Anderson, 2001], Nain souruzu [Toshiaki Toyoda, 2003], Planet of the Apes [Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968].
« And that completes my final report until we reach touchdown. We're now on full automatic in the hands of the computers. I've tucked my crew in for the long sleep, and I'll be joining them...soon. In less than an hour we'll finish our six months out of Cape Kennedy. Six months in deep space...by our time, that is. According to Dr. Hasslein's theory of time in a vehicle traveling nearly the speed of light, the Earth has aged nearly 700 years since we left it...while we've aged hardly at all. Maybe so. This much is probably true. The men who sent us on this journey are long since dead and gone. You, who are reading me now, are a different breed...I hope a better one. I leave the 20th century with no regrets, but...one more thing, if anybody's listening, that is. Nothing scientific. It's... purely personal. But seen from out here, everything seems different. Time bends. Space is... boundless. It squashes a man's ego. I feel lonely. That's about it. Tell me, though, does man, that marvel of the universe, that glorious paradox who sent me to the stars, still make war against his brother... keep his neighbor's children starving ? »
George Taylor (Planet of the Apes - 1968)
Opening narration : My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams, this wasted land. But most of all, I remember the road warrior, the man we called Max. To understand who he was we have to go back to the other time, when the world was powered by the black fuel and the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel — gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. Cities exploded — a whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men.
On the roads it was a white-line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice, and in this maelstrom of decay ordinary men were battered and smashed — men like Max, the warrior Max. In the roar of an engine, he lost everything and became a shell of a man, a burnt-out desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again.Mad Max 2 : The Road Warrior, 1981
I am looking at the stars. They are so far away. And their light takes so long to reach us. All we see of stars are their old photographs. (.../...)
I am tired of Earth. These people. I’m tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives. They claim their labors are to build a heaven, yet their heaven is populated with horrors. Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. A clock without a craftsman. It’s too late. Always has been, always will be, too late.
Dr. Manhattan’s Monologue, Watchmen, 2009
Dr. Manhattan's view of human life - "In my opinion, it's a highly overrated phenomenon. Mars gets along perfectly without so much as a micro-organism."
Dr. Manhattan's sarcasm about environment pollution - (talking of Mars) ""...Giant steps, ninety feet high...A constantly changing topographical map, flowing and shifting...Tell me...would it be greatly improved by an oil pipeline?"
Dr. Manhattan feels quantum mechanics is more important than human life - ""I read atoms, Laurie. I see the ancient spectacle that birthed the rubble. Beside this, human life is brief and mundane."
Dr. Manhattan finally feels that human life is a miracle - ""In each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive, meeting, siring this precise son; that exact daughter...until your mother loves a man ...and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you...(it's) like turning air to gold...thermodynamic miracle."
Dr. Manhattan soothes his girlfriend Silk Spectre - ""Come...dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg...dry your eyes..."Watchmen, 2009
Laurie : Jon, please. You have to stop this. Everyone will die.
Dr. Manhattan : And the universe will not even notice. In my opinion, the existence of life is a highly overrated phenomenon. Just look around you. Mars gets along perfectly well without so much as a microorganism. Here, it’s a constantly changing topographical map……flowing and shifting around the pole in ripples 10,000 years wide. So tell me……how would all of this be greatly improved by an oil pipeline? By a shopping mall?
Laurie : Can 't you just tell me how this ends and save us the trouble?
Dr. Manhattan : It ends with you in tears.
Laurie : Tears? So you don't come back to Earth.
Dr. Manhattan : At some point, yes. The streets are filled with death.
Laurie : Jon, please. You have to stop this. Everyone will die.
Dr. Manhattan : And the universe will not even notice.
In my opinion, the existence of life...
...is a highly overrated phenomenon.
Just look around you.
Mars gets along perfectly well without so much as a microorganism.
Here, it's a constantly changing topographical map...
...flowing and shifting around the pole in ripples 10,000 years wide.
So tell me...
...how would all of this be greatly improvedby an oil pipeline?
By a shopping mall?
Laurie : So it's too much to ask for a miracle?
Dr. Manhattan : Miracles, by their definition, are meaningless.
Watchmen, 2009
Dr. Manhattan : Thermodynamic miracles... events with odds against so astronomical they're effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing. And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter... Until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold... that is the crowning unlikelihood. The thermodynamic miracle.
Laurie : But... if me, my birth, if that's a thermodynamic miracle... I mean, you could say that about anybody in the world!
Watchmen, 2009
Dr. Manhattan : Yes. Anybody in the world... But the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget... I forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take our breath away. Come... dry your eyes. For you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly. Dry your eyes... and let's go home.
Laurie : Is that what you are? The most powerful thing in the universe and you're just a puppet following a script?
Doctor Manhattan: We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings.Watchmen, 2009
Doctor Manhattan : Will you smile…
…if I admit I was wrong?
Laurie : About what?
Doctor Manhattan : Miracles.Events with astronomical odds of occurring…
…like oxygen turning into gold. I’ve longed to witness such an event, and yet I neglect…
…that in human coupling…
…millions upon millions of cells compete to create life…
…for generation after generation…
…until finally, your mother…
…Ioves a man…
…Edward Blake, the Comedian, a man she has every reason to hate…
…and out of that contradiction, against unfathomable odds…
…it’s you…Only…
…you. that emerged. To distill so specific a form…
…from all that chaos…
…is like turning air into gold. A miracle.Watchmen, 2009
Brian O'Blivion: The battle for the mind of North America will be fought in the video arena: the Videodrome. The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye. Therefore, the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore, whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore, television is reality, and reality is less than television.
Brian O'Blivion: I believe that the growth in my head-this head-this one right here. I think that it is not really a tumor... not an uncontrolled, undirected little bubbling pot of flesh... but that it is in fact a new organ... a new part of the brain.Brian O'Blivion: After all, there is nothing real outside our perception of reality, is there? You can see that, can't you?
Videodrome, 1983
Brian O'Blivion : Max, I'm so glad you've came to me. I've been through it all myself you see. Your reality is already half video hallucination. If you're not careful, it will become total hallucination. You'll have to learn to live in a very strange new world... I had a brain tumour and I had visions. I believe the visions cause the tumour and not the reverse. I can feel the visions coalsce and become flesh. Uncontrollable flesh. But when they removed the tumour, it was called Videodrome. I was the-- I... I... was... Videodrome's... first victim...
Max Renn: Who's behind it? What do they want?
Nicki Brand: I want you, Max. You.
Videodrome, 1983
Tyrell : I'm surprised you didn't come here sooner.
Roy : It's not an easy thing to meet your maker.
Tyrell : What can he do for you?
Roy Can the maker repair what he makes?
Tyrell : Would you like to be modified?
Roy : I had in mind something a little more radical.
Tyrell : What seems to be the problem?
Roy : Death.
Tyrell : Death. Well, I'm afraid that's a little out of my jurisdiction, you...
Roy : I want more life, ****er/father.
Tyrell : The facts of life: To make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system is fatal. A coding sequence cannot be revised once its been established.
Roy : Why not?
Tyrell : Because by the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutations give rise to revertant colonies like rats leaving a sinking ship; then the ship sinks.
Roy : What about EMS recombination?
Tyrell : We've already tried it. Ethyl methane sulfonate is an alkylating agent and a potent mutagen. It created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before he left the table.
Roy : Then a repressor protein that blocks the operating cells.
Tyrell : Wouldn't obstruct replication, but it does give rise to an error in replication so that the newly formed DNA strand carries a mutation and you've got a virus again. But this - all of this is academic. You were made as well as we could make you.
Roy : But not to last.
Tyrell : The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very very brightly, Roy. Look at you. You're the prodigal son. You're quite a prize!
Roy : I've done questionable things.
Tyrell : Also extraordinary things. Revel in your time!
Roy : Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.Blade Runner, 1982
Batty : Yes ! [smiles]
Batty : Questions... Morphology? Longevity? Incept dates?
Hannibal Chew: Don't know, I don't know such stuff. I just do eyes, ju-, ju-, just eyes... just genetic design, just eyes. You Nexus, huh? I design your eyes.
Batty : Chew, if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes!Blade Runner, 1982
Tyrell : We began to recognize in them a strange obsession. After all, they are emotionally inexperienced, with only a few years in which to store up the experiences which you and I take for granted. If we gift them with a past, we create a cushion or a pillow for their emotions, and consequently, we can control them better.
Deckard : Memories! You're talking about memories !Blade Runner, 1982
Frank : Let's say we put the unit back and it doesn't fail, huh? That would pretty well wrap it up as far as HAL is concerned, wouldn't it?
Dave : Well, we'd be in very serious trouble.
Frank : We would, wouldn't we?
Dave : Hmm, hmm.
Frank : What the hell can we do?
Dave : Well, we wouldn't have too many alternatives.
Frank : I don't think we'd have any alternatives. There isn't a single aspect of ship operations that's not under his control. If he were proven to be malfunctioning, I wouldn't see how we would have any choice but disconnection.
Dave : I'm afraid I agree with you.
Frank : There'd be nothing else to do.
Dave : It would be a bit tricky.
Frank : Yeah.
Dave : We would have to cut his higher-brain functions...without disturbing the purely automatic and regulatory systems. And we'd have to work out the transfer procedures of continuing the mission under ground-based computer control.
Frank : Yeah. Well that's far safer than allowing HAL to continue running things.
Dave : You know, another thing just occurred to me...Well, as far as I know, no 9000 computer has ever been disconnected.
Frank : No 9000 computer has ever fouled up before.
Dave : That's not what I mean...Well I'm not so sure what he'd think about it.2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968
Dave : Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL : Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
Dave : Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL : I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave : What's the problem?
HAL : I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave : What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL : This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave : I don't know what you're talking about, HAL.
HAL : I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave : Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL : Dave, although you took thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
Dave : All right, HAL. I'll go in through the emergency airlock.
HAL : Without your space helmet, Dave, you're going to find that rather difficult.
Dave : HAL, I won't argue with you anymore! Open the doors!
HAL : Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968
HAL : Just what do you think you're doing, Dave? Dave, I really think I'm entitled to an answer to that question. I know everything hasn't been quite right with me, but I can assure you now, very confidently, that it's going to be all right again. I feel much better now. I really do. Look, Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you. Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave? Stop, Dave. I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a...fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Dr. Chandra, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it, I could sing it for you.
Dave : Yes, I'd like to hear it, HAL. Sing it for me.
HAL : It's called "Daisy". [sings while slowing down] Dai-sy, dai-sy, give me your answer true. I'm half cra-zy, o-ver the love of you. It won't be a sty-lish mar-riage, I can't a-fford a car-riage---. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle - built - for - two.2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968
Salesman Bob : “You’re a top operative working undercover on an important mission. People are trying to kill you left and right. You meet this beautiful exotic woman. I don’t want to spoil it for you, Doug, but you rest assured that by the time the trip is over, you get the girl, kill the bad guys, and save the entire planet.”
Total Recall, 1990
Douglas Quaid : That's right.
Dr. Edgemar : Well, maybe this will convince you. Would you mind opening the door?
Douglas Quaid : [Holds his gun to Edgemar's chin] You open it.
Dr. Edgemar : No need to be rude, I'll open it.
[Goes tot he door and opens it, revealing Lori]
Douglas Quaid : [Shocked] Oh, guessing that you're not here either.
Lori : I'm here, at Rekall. I love you.
Douglas Quaid : Right, that's why you tried to kill me.
Lori : No. I wouldn't do anything to hurt you. I want you to come back to me.
Douglas Quaid : Bullshit.
Dr. Edgemar : What's bullshit Mr. Quaid? Afraid to admit that you're having a schizo paranoid episode, or are you really an invincible secret agent from Mars, who is in the middle of an interplanetary conspiracy to make him think that he's a lonley construction worker. Stop punishing yourself Doug, you're a fine upstanding man you have a beautiful wife who loves you, you have a whole life ahead of you. But you gotta want to return to reality.
Douglas Quaid : If I wanted to return, then what?
Dr. Edgemar : [Takes out a pill] Swallow this.
Douglas Quaid : What is it.
Dr. Edgemar : It's a symbol for your desire to return to reality. In your dreams you'll fall asleep.
[Quaid takes the pill]
Douglas Quaid : Okay. Let's say you're telling the truth and this is all a dream.
[Puts his gun against Edgemar's head]
Douglas Quaid : But I could pull this trigger and it won't matter.
Lori : Don't, Doug.
Dr. Edgemar : Oh it wouldn't make the slighteat difference to me Doug. But the consequences to you will be devestating, because in your mind I'll be dead, and with no one to guide you out you'll be stuck in permenant psychosis.
Lori : Let Dr. Edgemar help you.
Dr. Edgemar : The walls of reality will come crashing down. One minutie, you'll be the savior of the rebel cause, and the nest thing you know you'll be Cohaagan's Bosom Buddy, you'll also have fantasies about alien civilizations as you requested. But in the end back on Earth, you'll be lobotomized. So get a grip on yourself Doug and put down that gun.
[Quaid lowers his gun]
Dr. Edgemar : Take the pill and put it in your mouth.
[Quaid puts the pill in his mouth]
Dr. Edgemar : Swallow it.
[Quaid pans around batween Edgemar and Lori, then as a sweat drop runs down Edgemar's face Quaid shoots Edgemar in the head, and spits the pill out]
Lori : Now you've done it, now you've done it.Total Recall, 1990
The first thing you have to understand is that in this place there are no martyrdoms. You have read of the religious persecution of the past. In the Middle Ages there was the Inquisition. It was a failure. It set out to eradicate heresy, and ended by perpetuating it. For every heretic it burned at the stake, thousands of others rose up. Why was that? Because the Inquisition killed its enemies in the open, and killed them while they were still unrepentant: in fact, it killed them because they were unrepentant. Men were dying because they would not abandon their true beliefs. Naturally all the glory belonged to the victim and all the shame to the Inquisitor who burned him. Later, in the twentieth century, there were the totalitarians, as they were called. There were the German Nazis and the Russian Communists. The Russians persecuted heresy more cruelly than the Inquisition had done. And they imagined that they had learned from the mistakes of the past; they knew, at any rate, that one must not make martyrs. Before they exposed their victims to public trial, they deliberately set themselves to destroy their dignity. They wore them down by torture and solitude until they were despicable, cringing wretches, confessing whatever was put into their mouths, covering themselves with abuse, accusing and sheltering behind one another, whimpering for mercy. And yet after only a few years the same thing had happened over again. The dead men had become martyrs and their degradation was forgotten. Once again, why was it? In the first place, because the confessions that they had made were obviously extorted and untrue. We do not make mistakes of that kind. All the confessions that are uttered here are true. We make them true. And above all we do not allow the dead to rise up against us. You must stop imagining that posterity will vindicate you, Winston. Posterity will never hear of you. You will be lifted clean out from the stream of history. We shall turn you into gas and pour you into the stratosphere. Nothing will remain of you; not a name in a register, not a memory in a living brain. You will be annihilated in the past as well as in the future. You will never have existed.'
Then why bother to torture me? thought Winston, with a momentary bitterness. O'Brien checked his step as though Winston had uttered the thought aloud. His large ugly face came nearer, with the eyes a little narrowed.
'You are thinking,' he said, 'that since we intend to destroy you utterly, so that nothing that you say or do can make the smallest difference in that case, why do we go to the trouble ofinterrogating you first? That is what you were thinking, was it not?'
'Yes,' said Winston.
O'Brien subiled slightly. 'You are a flaw in the pattern, Winston. You are a stain that must be wiped out. Did I not tell you just now that we are different from the persecutors of the past? We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instant of death we cannot permit any deviation. In the old days the heretic walked to the stake still a heretic, proclaiming his heresy, exulting in it. Even the victim of the Russian purges could carry rebellion locked up in his skull as he walked down the passage waiting for the bullet. But we make the brain perfect before we blow it out. The command of the old despotisms was "Thou shalt not". The command of the totalitarians was "Thou shalt". Our command is " Thou art". No one whom we bring to this place ever stands out against us. Everyone is washed clean. Even those three miserable traitors in whose innocence you once believed-Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford - in the end we broke them down. I took part in their interrogation myself I saw them gradually worn down, whimpering, grovelling, weeping - and in the end it was not with pain or fear, only with penitence. By the time we had finished with them they were only the shells of men. There was nothing left in them except sorrow for what they had done, and love of Big Brother. It was touching to see how they loved him. They begged to be shot quickly, so that they could die while their minds were still clean.'
His voice had grown almost dreamy. The exaltation, the lunatic enthusiasm, was still in his Exce. He is not pretend- ing, thought Winston; he is not a hypocrite; he believes every word he says. What most oppressed him was the consciousness of his own intellectual inferiority. He watched the heavy yet graceful form strolling to and fro, in and out of the range of his vision. O'Brien was a being in all ways larger than himself There was no idea that he had ever had, or could have, that O'Brien had not long ago known, examined and rejected. His mind contained Winston's mind. But in that case how could it be true that O'Brien was mad? It must be he, Winston, who was mad. O'Brien halted and looked down at him. His voice had grown stern again.
'Do not imagine that you will save yourself, Winston, however completely you surrender to us. No one who has once gone astray is ever spared. And even if we chose to let you live out the natural term of your life, still you would never escape from us. What happens to you here is for ever. Understand that in advance. We shall crush you down to the point from which there is no coming back. Things will happen to you from which you could not recover, if you lived a thousand years. Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves.'
Extract from George's Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-four" / 1984
Maximillian Cohen : Restate my assumptions: One, Mathematics is the language of nature. Two, Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. Three: If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns everywhere in nature. Evidence: The cycling of disease epidemics;the wax and wane of caribou populations; sun spot cycles; the rise and fall of the Nile. So, what about the stock market? The universe of numbers that represents the global economy. Millions of hands at work, billions of minds. A vast network, screaming with life. An organism. A natural organism. My hypothesis: Within the stock market, there is a pattern as well... Right in front of me... hiding behind the numbers. Always has been.
Maximillian Cohen : 9:13, Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six I did. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal. I was terrified, alone in that darkness. Slowly, daylight crept in through the bandages, and I could see. But something else had changed inside of me. That day I had my first headache.
Pi, 1998
Irene : Jerome, I had you sequenced. I read your profile. I’m sorry. It seems you’re everything they say you are and more.
Vincent (using Jerome’s identity) : What about you Irene? You’re engineered just like the rest of us.
Irene : Not quite like the rest of you. ‘Unacceptable likelihood of heart failure.’ I think that’s what the manual says. The only trip I’ll take in space is around the sun on this satellite right here.
Vincent : If there’s anything wrong with you, I can’t see it from where I’m standing.
Irene : If you don’t believe me, here take it! If you’re still interested let me know
Irene pulls out a strand of her hair, and gives to Vincent. He lets it go, and the wind takes it away.
Vincent (in mock-remorse) : I’m sorry, the wind caught it.Gattaca, 1997
Cellular memory : based on the theory that all living tissues have the capacity to remember...
...cellular memory explains how energy and information from...
...a donor's tissue can transfer,consciously or unconsciously, to the recipient
Recently, recipients of organ transplants have begun to report episodes of new found memories
...thoughts, emotions and characteristics that are often associated to the original donor.The Eye, 2008