Failing Orbit 8 - Repeating the same mistakes

Sold, 2012





















I make some journeys more than once. Sometimes I find myself returning to the same spot repeatedly. This is often unconscious; some uncanny drift, drawing the hostage body towards a space in which one finds some familiarity in the very strangeness of the location itself. Sometimes, however, this return is deliberate. I may return to ‘re-shoot’. Perhaps some blur had occurred the first time, an unintentional movement in the frame, or even technical fault. In these cases, I return to correct the mistakes of the past; to both repeat and perfect history, by recreating an image that will inevitably be haunted by its own past failure. 

With such idealising of the past, one creates a false memory of success in the wake of error. Yet, one is always dogged by the changes that have taken place in one’s own absence; foliage grows, cars move, building-work continues, even lamp-posts get relocated. Minor details that are otherwise missed, remind oneself that repetition is always impossible. One can never step into the same river twice, as it were. Each mistake is always a new mistake.