Cryptomnesia Explored in Video Archive Exhibition at Milan's Fabbrica del Vapore

Curated by Marta Cereda, the exhibition 'Tungsteno. Memorie e falsi ricordi dall’Archivio Video di Careof' at Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan reinterprets Careof's video archive of 9,000 works, recognized as nationally significant by Italy's Ministry of Culture. Inspired by neurologist Oliver Wolf Sacks's book 'Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood,' which recounts a false memory, the show delves into cryptomnesia—the phenomenon where a false memory is mistaken for an original creation. Spanning fifty years, the exhibition features 26 artists from the 1970s to today, including Franco Vaccari, Felipe Aguila, Meris Angioletti, Marinella Senatore, Francesco Bertocco, Rossella Biscotti, and Cristian Chironi. Their works engage with found footage, fiction, vintage imagery, and home movies, treating memory as a living, fallible, and mutable substance. The installation divides the space into areas, each with a screen showing a video, facing seating made of layered velcro that evokes stratification. No fixed path is prescribed, encouraging viewers to linger and travel through past and present memories.