Luke-Philip Seibt

What Remains & What is Lost

This term project, part of The Creation in Context: Science Meets Arts assignment, merges personal narrative with psychological inquiry to explore how trauma alters memory. Through two original mixed-media artworks, What Remains and What Is Lost, the project visualizes the emotional and cognitive processes involved in trauma memory. Drawing from both personal experience with childhood cancer and psychological literature on memory fragmentation, dissociation, and cognitive dissonance, the works blend photography, illustration, and digital manipulation to evoke the blurred boundaries of traumatic recollection. The visual output is accompanied by a written analysis that connects artistic decisions with relevant psychological theories, offering an interdisciplinary interpretation of trauma’s impact on memory and identity.

“Project StatementThis project is a personal and psychological exploration of how trauma distorts memory, expressed through the creation of two mixed-media pieces. What Remains represents the fragments of memory that persist, while What Is Lost symbolizes the absences and distortions caused by trauma. Drawing from my experience with childhood illness, the work reflects the blurring of time, space, and self that trauma often produces. By layering current and past imagery, altering opacity, and manipulating form, I sought to replicate the fragmented, surreal qualities of trauma memory as described in psychological research.Informed by key concepts from Sanderson, Huffman, and Shi, including memory encoding disruption, dissociation, and cognitive dissonance, this project reveals the dual nature of traumatic recall: both protective and disorienting. Through the contrast of positive and negative imagery, clear detail and smudged abstraction, I invite viewers to confront the instability of memory and the emotional residue that remains. This work aims not only to visualize psychological theory but to open a conversation about healing, identity, and the ways we piece together who we are from what memory leaves behind.”