Marcos

I ran into the project now known as “Lossy Light Memories” on a November evening one year ago. If I had had the device then, I would have likely used it to keep a record of the Asian girl lost in her own memories and her iPod or the man half-dressed as a clown coming home that rode with me into Brooklyn, or the humble but inescapable coziness of the apartment I was visiting, or the smiles of Clio and Claudio (my guests) over memories of Italy and the best lasagna you can make with ingredients found in New York.

“Lossy Light Memories”, however, was then only a vague idea in Claudio’s mind (an idea so powerful as to hook me completely, but still only an idea, nonetheless). Therefore, we only took a regular picture and I sent an e-mail to Claudio, exactly one year into the future, using futureme.org.

A year went by, a year in which I could have used the machine many more times, a year in which I made mine more fully than ever the other person that should have this device.

And then, on a senseless Sunday night in which my only company was a bottle of gin and a pack of cigarettes to go along, Claudio reintroduce me to “Lossy Light Memories”. We discussed into the early hours everything from memory to the logarithmic nature of human knowledge, until the gin was finished and I wanted nothing more than to have Claudio’s “Lossy Light Memories” machine on me to capture that moment and send it to someone that cared.

The email I had sent to Claudio from the past arrived the next day.

Nothing more fitting. This is what “Lossy Light Memories” is all about. Moments too magical for our rational selfs to deal with. The past coming knocking to remind us of what we were and what we have become. People faraway that become so close by a wink of destiny.

Claudio’s device is not a mass consumer object. It cannot even be misused. However, to the people it is intended for, it is the perfect technological device. So perfect, indeed, as to be considered a work of magic.

As I was sitting to write this, the person which I would most like to give the other half to, wrote me a brief reminder of her existence. As a post script she added: “I have two images that I would send to you through our magical device, one would make you laugh and inspire you to come up with a character for a movie or something, the other would make your skin crawl and would speed up your heartbeat because of its how overwhelming and exact it is”.

I have no doubt.

All through my life, before meeting her, before meeting Claudio, before sending emails into the future, I have been obsessed at capturing the beauty of the essence of human experience in film. I am my own tragic hero: even though someday I might, Claudio has already done it for me, in a way that will not be outdone anytime soon.

Technology, thus, stole from art the moments, the memory and the people that make being human exciting and gave it back to those ready to understand it.

* * *

From the film: Carolina and her world, 2002. Dir: Marcos Villaseñor

"When I was a kid, I had this fantasy in which one day someone knocked the door and, when I opened it, I found a white envelope. When I opened it, I found it had pictures inside. Those weren't pictures of boring birthday parties, or hollidays, or model portfolios, or the proof that your parents are cheating on each other. No. They were pictures from the future.

"I would then try to imagine how tall I would be, who I'd be hanging out with, where would I be and, especially, what would I be feeling when the picture was taken.

"I guess that if my fantasy would become true today and I could send my pictures now back to Guadalajara and back to 1989, I wouldn't be dissapointed at all.

"Actually, the more I looked at them, the more I would like to be the girl I am now. This happy grl with no fears. This girl that knows that hapiness is in deciding to do what you really want.