The Earlier Known
A Music/Video Installation by
Stuart Bender and Angelo Funicelli ©1994

In The Earlier Known, four channels of video and three of sound follow separate paths to examine the modalities of time and memory. Over a constant musical underpinning of drones and bells, the installation is populated with videotaped images of objects, precious and mundane, isolated and static, or being used in slow- motion by people projected on the wall. Scrolling texts display fragmented memories, abstracted from personal histories.

Stories in various languages are read aloud in halting and unsure ways, as if being translated at sight from ancient inscriptions. One narrative is straightforward, technical, almost scientific, yet its meaning becomes lost in a maze of overly-detailed, fantastic description.

Every voice in this dense jungle of sonic and visual polyphony is familiar, some of it is comforting, yet none of it is solid enough to target or grasp. Who is being remembered, and who is remembering? As in life, objects, stories, and images are hooks that memories are hung on. Together, they become the fabric of history and identity.