Feeling-of-knowing was a five-year survey of sculptures, drawings, projected video, and sculptural installations, many produced in collaboration with musician and composer Lisa Mezzacappa, that was exhibited at San Diego State University Art Gallery in 2011.

From the exhibition essay by curator Tina Yapelli:
“Aschheim is interested in both a subjective and scientific understanding of memory, and has titled the exhibition with a poetic phrase that is, in actuality, a clinical term borrowed from memory studies. “Feeling-of-knowing” refers to the sensation that occurs when we feel that we know something about a particular subject, but that knowledge, which we believe exists within our memory, is just beyond our immediate grasp. In other words, we might not know the answer to a question at the moment we are asked, but we believe that the answer is stored within our memory, waiting to be accessed and recalled. Aschheim’s artworks conjure this concept of memory out-of-reach, while at the same time serving as mnemonic devices for individual and cultural remembrance.

Since 2007, memory has been pursued in three major bodies of Aschheim’s work: On Memory, Earworms and Nostalgia for the Future. On Memory focuses on visualizing the memory process and mapping neural networks. Part experimental psychology and part personal narrative, the sculptural installations of On Memory take the form of large, glowing webs that relate to memory’s fragile, intimate connections and create the support structure for small video monitors that display the artist’s childhood home movies. Earworms, in collaboration with Mezzacappa, comprises sculptural and room-sized “instruments” built to play recorded songs that were written to back up the artist’s memory for language, and specifically for a selection of her favorite words. Each elaborate construction continuously plays one song, inspired by one word, over and over again, as it burns an indelible path into one’s memory. Nostalgia for the Future addresses memory and place, and the haunting of the present by the misremembered future. The sculptures and drawings are driven by the unexpected poignancy of endangered modernist buildings and the failed utopia that they evoke. Selections from each of these three series are represented in feeling-of-knowing, and the University Art Gallery is pleased to premiere a new sculpture and several new drawings from the ongoing Nostalgia for the Future project, as well as a new Earworm installation created for the exhibition.”

for musician credits, click HERE
Photography by Pablo Mason