Lakeman’s exhibition aims to show his childhood memories of Fort Regent Leisure Centre. But Lakeman had so few photographic images from his childhood of his time at the Fort and therefore used AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology as an attempt to reconfigure his memories from all those years ago.
How has childhood memories inspired the imagery?
Will’s exhibition presents the theme of nostalgia as this bright colourful and unrealistic view of the past. The definition of nostalgia is “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past.” and I feel that this is shown very clearly within the exhibition. However, Lakeman also added that despite these amazing memories of the Fort, he doesn’t necessarily want to go back to that time; partly out of fear that his memory from his childhood would be shattered by something pretty boring and not as amazing as he believes it to be, but also he doesn’t wish to go back to a time where racism and homophobia, and a clear disregard for people’s mental health was around every corner. This revelation raises the question of ‘Is this nostalgia, or just a well loved memory being shown to the world?’
Lakeman’s use of modern AI technology brings alive the vibrancy of his own personal dreams. But I know from personal experience that most dreams are bright and colourful. They occur when your brain isn’t fully asleep but close to it, allowing this sensation that usually makes a person feel better and more relaxed. However, dreams can also become nightmares, dark and sometimes horrifying hallucinations that scare people to wake up. There is this idea that dreams help send you to sleep and nightmares do the opposite, perhaps it is the brains way of telling you whether or not its ready to shut down for the night. It is this concept that I believe to be clearly shown in Lakeman’s exhibition – the simplicity of producing dark vs light images shows the two types of dreams that one gets. The piece shown above titled ‘Rails Merge’ itself shows this separation with the left side of the image lighter and more colourful, and the right fading to complete darkness. One interpretation would suggest that this shows the brightness of a dream fading to the dimly lit, more drab imagery of a nightmare. However, Will’s intention behind this image could also be to show the colour of the dream fading into the deep sleep that follows. This idea presents a more tranquil idea to the image and compliments the bright and colourful imagery throughout the rest of the exhibition. Therefore, that is the more likely intention for Will within this single image.
I became very interested in this image, never thinking that a swimming pool could be shown in so many bright and vibrant colours. Lakeman revealed that alongside his autism, he gets synesthetic hallucinations of overly colourful images and this was an outcome after one such occasion. He tells us “Of all the spaces that live on inside my memories, the Fort’s swimming pool is the most powerful.” Will dedicated an entire area of the exhibition to this prominent memory producing a series of images using AI technology to create these eccentric and wonderful memories of something as simple as a swimming pool that many can’t even imagine.
On the whole, I really enjoyed Lakeman’s exhibition and found it as an innovative way of using modern technology to remember and examine the past.