Distorted Explorer

Memories are full of inconsistencies, often warped by self-applied biases that distort one's view of a moment. Each time a memory is recalled, it is said that the neural pathways change, oftentimes making a memory of the past a reflection, not of the actual moment, but of the last time that moment is recalled. 

In this series, Mullins examines his own memory’s biases of Vancouver, a city he knows as home. Having not lived in Vancouver for nearly five years, Mullins’ recollection of the city often skews negative. He remembers the rain much wetter, the people much colder and the abundance of nature, underwhelming. He cites this stifled method of recall as a defense mechanism to protect himself from feelings of loneliness and the ongoing division from home. 

Currently living in Dakar, West Africa, during a time when the pandemic prohibited the return home, Mullins wanted to acknowledge the nostalgic view of Vancouver that he has suppressed. This is a means, he presumes, of feeling closer to his home and to confront his own negative biases. While aiming to recall these positive memories, Mullins used Google Street View as a tool to remember; actively separating sentiment from the process. He soon realized that it too was a flawed and manipulated version of a moment; an incomplete memory that was also having an effect on his recall. These source images, almost always recorded during sunny daylight hours, are often blurred and stretched during the stitching process, showing a curated view of a particular locale. There exists a certain irony in using an imperfect but positive view of the city to help balance his imperfect but negative view of the same city. Similar to navigating information in today’s world, one must always question if what they see and the information they consume is telling a holistic story or if the facts are warped to fit a particular narrative. 

Each piece uses an image taken directly from Google Street View as a reference point and is named based on the coordinates of its geographical location. This allows the viewer to use the names of each piece to explore the exact location where the image was sourced and to see the city of Vancouver through the same distorted lens Mullins used when painting this series from Dakar. Mullins further manipulated sections of each piece using blur, drag, and saturation effects to exaggerate existing flaws in the source images and to provide a balance of imperfection in what otherwise seems to be a perfect image. In this series, Mullins challenges the viewer to invest critically in their own memories to better understand how they choose to reconstruct an indexed moment, knowing that it is likely a false composite; fragmented and precise as the moment you are in right now.