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A film by Dillwyn
Smith and David Bickerstaff
Video | 4:3 | 6min 20sec
The National is a collaboration with the painter Dillwyn Smith whose
mother suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease. In an attempt to
stimulate a fading memory, Dillwyn’s would often turned to
his father’s reel-to-reel tape deck (the National), and play
recordings of his family singing Irish songs 37 years earlier.
We became interested in the recorder as an
object of communication with an inherent personality and archive
of memories. The National is shot from many angles and in a documentary
style. This identifies the recorder as the main protagonist, operating
with repetitive action and delivering a range of borrowed memories
from political songs to strange laughter.
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