Time Before Memory is viewable HERE

Cecilia Dougherty
Time Before Memory

Microscope is very pleased to present the launch of Cecilia Dougherty’s web-based work “Time Before Memory”, a fictional story and multiple-choice adventure, taking place in the Paleolithic Age between 29,900 to 40,000 years ago.

The work was created with Twine — an online platform fostering the “transformation of video games into something that is not only consumed by the masses but also created by them” — and is situated at the intersection of video game, literature, photography and moving image. The work features original photographs and video shot by the artist in the caves of southern France and northern Spain, as well as computer-generated imagery, open source photography, and sound effects. Viewers navigate the project by making choices on each of the story’s pages about which branch of the story to explore next as well as to try options not originally selected.

“The story is about the end of human evolution, imagining it as not a natural ending. The player goes back to the Paleolithic and through the story, explores the origins of our relationships to each other and to our fellow Homo Sapiens, including our relatives, the Neanderthals. It is about our ideas of species, territory and home; about the rocks, the animals, the earth; about settlement and migration.

Paleolithic art has not been deciphered. We can’t say for sure what the images mean, but we can make informed guesses. The paintings provide glimpses, for example, of how societies understood the relationship of humans to animals, and of the human-to-animal spectrum that was the foundation for survival. We can study the practice itself of the artists. The materials they used are still in use – ochre and charcoal, engraving and carving, foundation and depiction, outlines, shading, molding forms with strokes, perspective, coloring, abstraction, repetition, and animation. The timeline itself of the images contains a singular message. The same type of image is drawn over the same type of image, but it is drawn a few thousand years later. The mystery of the work is compelling and it is through this mystery that the spiritual element emerges.

As societies grew, as people settled and land became possession, spirits became gods and we went to war over both land and gods. We started out by destroying anyone who was not ‘us.’  This is the story behind ‘Time Before Memory.’ It is a work of speculative fiction and is not science. It takes creative license with artworks, locations, eras, human species, and real events. It is meant to be played as much as read. The more choices one makes as a player, the more of the story one reveals.” – CD