Chris Doyle's 'Memento Vivere'

Press release from the Center for the Art of Performance UCLA:

July 6, 2020

WHO: UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) in collaboration with the Student Committee for the Arts commissioned digital media artist Chris Doyle to create a work that commemorates the UCLA Centennial.

WHAT: Memento Vivere is a project that reimagines the form a contemporary public artwork might take in a contemporary world. In December of 2019, sixty UCLA students participated in an improvisational video shoot on the campus. All were asked to perform a physical gesture that was related to their own relationship to time. These short videos are assembled as the minute hand on a digital clock, positioning these sixty students as literal time keepers of the future.

WHEN: Available now

WHERE: Memento Vivere can be downloaded for free from the app store for iWatch, iPad or iPhone where it keeps time in the digital world.

WHY: The clock was originally conceived as a large-scale projection for Royce Hall to be on display throughout the graduation ceremonies of 2020. As the project evolved, the world changed with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“At that point, whatever our own personal sense of time might have been, we all have had to acknowledge that it, along with everything else in our world, has changed radically," said Chris Doyle. "The clock was adapted to become a living memento.”

“The students who participated in the project were generous and exuberant collaborators and contributed to this snapshot of a profound moment of cultural and economic upheaval and for that I am deeply grateful. I hope that when you look at this piece, whatever the platform where you may view it, the students who made it will help you to remember that movement is possible in every moment.”

ASSETS: Video | Photos | Chris Doyle

CONTACT: Geena Russo, Communications Manager, geena@arts.ucla.edu

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ABOUT CAP UCLA
UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) is dedicated to the advancement of the contemporary performing arts in all disciplines — dance, music, spoken word and theater, as well as emerging digital, collaborative and cross-platforms — by leading artists from around the globe. Part of UCLA’s School of the Arts and Architecture, CAP UCLA curates and facilitates direct exposure to artists who are creating extraordinary works of art and fosters a vibrant learning community both on and off the UCLA campus. The organization invests in the creative process by providing artists with financial backing and time to experiment and expand their practices through strategic partnerships and collaborations. As an influential voice within the local, national and global arts communities, CAP UCLA connects this generation to the next in order to preserve a living archive of our culture. CAP UCLA is also a safe harbor where cultural expression and artistic exploration can thrive, giving audiences the opportunity to experience real life through characters and stories on stage, and giving artists an avenue to challenge assumptions and advance new ways of seeing and understanding the world we live in now.
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This press release was produced by the Center for the Art of Performance UCLA. The views expressed here are the author's own.