Abstract and Personal Statement, Thesis 2006
Thesis Abstract
Can a group of friends form a shared consciousness to the point of having shared memories/stories? How does a group develop such a connection that stories are told as mythology, verbatim, no matter who tells the story – even if the speaker was not present when the event occurred? Is there a way in which to expose viewers/outsiders to the inner workings/dialogue of this shared group consciousness?
Personal Statement
As a beginning filmmaker studying communication arts in high school and UGFTV at Tisch, I was intrigued by the formation of narrative structure within the mind. Non-linear story structure emerged within the independent film scene during this time, causing me to rethink a lot of what I had learned about storytelling regarding temporal structure and the way we tend to perceive our own memories as non-linear fragments, often conjured and revealed by the senses.
I noticed within my own group of friends, beginning in 1995, a shift in storytelling structure. Over time, our stories developed into a group mythology. These narratives were told by members of the group in the first person whether the storyteller had been present during the actual event or not. The members tell these stories verbatim, as shared memories. The original memories have either been distorted or discarded, and the group memories have taken their places.
At ITP, I have studied experimental documentary filmmaking. I have collected footage to demonstrate the ways this shared connection has manifested itself over the past ten years. For my thesis, I plan to assemble and present a feature length experimental documentary about this group of 150 people based on the lyrical and surrealist forms I learned during my coursework with professor Tirtza Even. I hope to convey the story/memories from the point of view of anyone within the group without specifying a “main character” through whose eyes the viewer is supposed to see and identify with the world of the story.
Current related reading:
Wertsch, James V. Voices of Collective Remembering. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 2002.