Memory in Ruin
A Manifesto on Time, Trauma, and the Fading Archive
Stone records time. Time erodes stone. Its birth and death simultaneously.
Stone remembers what we try to forget. But even stone forgets.
We are shaped by centuries of violencephysical, emotional, generational. Our walls, our cities, our minds they all carry the weight of memory. This is the essence of Stone Tape Theory: the idea that trauma leaves echoes
in the world around us. That screams, sorrow, and struggle imprint themselves into stone, like ancient scars we don't see but feel.
But time does not honor memory. It erodes it.
The very medium that holds the paststone, steel, the mindalso breaks it down. Rain smooths battle-scarred walls.
Wind scrapes away the last whispers of grief. Minds decay. Memories fade. This is the paradox:
What endures also dissolves.
This is Memory in Ruin.
A world where nothing stays remembered long enough to be sacred. A world where trauma can be eternal, yet undocumented.
An archive built to fail.
Every collection we create, every piece of art, every sound is a response to that contradiction.
We are preserving what is already disappearing.
We are recording echoes before they go silent.
Memory in Ruin
A Manifesto on Time, Trauma, and the Fading Archive
Everything will fade, even the memory of fading.
© 2025 Tyler Allen. “Memory in Ruin.” All rights reserved.