Memory, forgetting and me
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I’m not sure how your memory works for you, but I find my memory twists and turns and is ever changing. A bit like the so called summer weather we are experiencing here at the moment. I have always had an interest in all things nostalgia; in memories and how we perceive them, and how people attribute value to past events.
I found this really insightful article by Sanne van der Beek discussing our obsession with routinely digitizing everything we do, from our diary entries to our holiday snaps. As a culture we seem to be reluctant to forget anything, as everything we do, every breath and step we take, is recorded, photographed and stored somewhere. Apps like Museum of Me and the growth of Facebook and Twitter have allowed every interaction to be mapped and catalogued.
It is interesting to see how these activities are changing our relationship with memory, memory formation and memory gathering. Or as Richard Terdiman notes, “that we went from a culture of remembrance to a culture of preservation.” Have a look at Daniel Kahneman’s talk, the riddle of experience vs. memory that inspired this article.
Further Reading:
– Biography of Daniel Kahneman on TED
– Richard Terdiman (1993) Present Past: Modernity and the Memory Crisis
Thanks Sanne for a great article.
Guy Barriscale
July 5, 2011 @ 3:37 pm
fascinating thoughts, I’ve noticed this myself in a purely subjective way… wandering around Stonehenge and the roman baths at Bath a couple of years ago. Struck by how so many tourists walked around with a camcorder stuck to their eye and an audio guide plugged into their ear, without even looking with their own eyes at the history in front of them. Happened again in front of the Pieta in St Peter’s, a photograph and then move on… Sistine Chapel dumped to flash card to be viewed later. It’s quite sad how few memories these people will have, might as well do Google Images as that’s all they’ll have to remember anything by… very sad in fact.
Mary Carty
July 6, 2011 @ 12:49 pm
Hi Guy,
I think we are getting to a point where the need to experience and “consume” culture is so prevalent; we feel we have to show evidence of what we have seen and where we have been, to demonstrate to the world that we were there. Cultural and historic spaces really suffer from this type of treatment and the experience is really diminished for everyone. I love my camera but at times I leave it at home just to experience the place, the people or the occasion for myself and rely on my memories. Maybe we have lost the ability to experience time and place without visual reminders. I wonder how our relationship with nostalgia and the past will be negotiated in the future with the amount of data we have amassed now? Thanks for your comment.
Mary