Exercise 3.6: The Memory of Photography.

The Memory of Photography.

• What changes have taken place in the nature of a photograph, and its use as a memory now that the end product is a file within an archive rather than a viewable print?  

• As human remembrance of events can be fragile, a note taken at the time can act as a catalyst to aid the retention of that memory of the.  Such aids are based on our based on two of senses; sight and sound.  First came writing then came the photograph.

• The use of such memory aids meant that it was no longer necessary to carry as many memories in ones head.  A reference to a sight or sound could act as a trigger to bring about a remembrance.

• The method of recording images can effect their impact on future viewers.  Memories can by manipulated by creating a public memory of an event that may differ from individuals recollections of the same event.  The archive of the French Revolution edited out the unsavoury business of the “Terror.”  The victor writes the history.

• Many methods are employed to keeps public events in the memory, statues, coins and medals, street names, and plaques.  More personal and democratic is the family album with its record of family history.  Turned to again and again to bring back thoughts and memories of personal events.  These represent a bottom-up history rather than the official top-down history of coins and street names.

• Many other specialised archives exist and are made and kept by the likes of the state and its many branches, the media, the arts, and a myriad of independent social groups.  Each of these my record events differently and show differing truths that over time will vie for ultimate veracity.

• The photographs gift is its ability to record the fact of an objects presence, even after its passing.  It is a history of both what is and what has been.  Fox Talbot’s image of the building of Trafalgar Square is both proof of its construction and the lateness of the event  after Nelson’s death.  

• There has long been an argument that popular memory is manipulated by modern culture by its ability to impose a false memory.  Thus people are fooled to believe in a past that did not exist.  This is still possible in the digital age.  The current argument is that the presence of these digital images suppresses human memory.  

• Can we now trust our own memories?  Are we remembering events that we did not witness?  In stead of using images to aid our memories are we now using these images as our memories?  

The piece by Freud nicely explains one of the unpleasant side effects of Alzheimer’s Syndrome where a sufferer may forget an argument but retain the bad feeling that it brought on.  

As explained in the article the two features of the event are recorded separately in the brain, one a conscious memory and the other a feeling about that memory.  Let’s say the event was a row with a relative.  The event itself is recorded as both a memory of the event and the feelings about the event.  As time passes, maybe only a few minutes, the memory of the event fades leaving no trace, but the feeling about what had occurred lives on leaving a disconnected bad feeling towards the relative.  These can now not be resolved as the original reason for the bad feeling has gone.  

The normal brain retains both the real memory and the feelings raised by it and can use them them in conjunction.