Susan Sontag

Recently I have read 'On Photography' by Susan Sontag, to get a better understanding of photography itself as a medium. Sontag generally raises issues of a photographic world replacing the real one, and talks about a culture that is becoming increasingly obsessed with images. Sontag talks about photography as a replacement of reality. We have become reliant on photographs as a way of preserving and freezing moments of time. Images are everywhere - and we regularly experience things through photographs before we experience them in reality. An example of this would be holiday brochures: - we don't need to go to the place to experience it when we have a photograph. This also takes away from the virginity of a new experience. Since the invention and ever widening use of social networking sites I think this has gone to another level - I, and many others in my generation, see so many photos of our friends' daily lives now that we almost live through them, and they become our own memories too. We are constantly looking at other people's memories. I think social networking sites really confuse and blur the line between individual and collective memory, as we blog our own personal thoughts and photos, but this gets framed alongside everybody else's and becomes a wider, more collective narrative reflecting today's times. I find myself sharing in my friends' experiences through their photographs. As Sontag states: 'essentially the camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own.'

In terms of photography in relation to memories, Sontag states that photographs are 'not so much an instrument of memory as an invention of it or a replacement', highlighting that photography can be used as a replacement of memory, but it will never be that memory. 'Photography implies that we know about the world if we accept it as the camera records it.  But this is the opposite of understanding'. This is interesting in terms of preserving memories, as we have become reliant on photography as a way of freezing moments and serving as a reminder or explanation of the past, but we can't always believe that what we see in a photograph is a true reflection - seeing a memory is not the same as understanding it, feeling it and recalling it involuntarily. That would be what we truly remember, if our memory hasn't been infiltrated by photographs. Sontag states: 'of course, photographs fill in blanks in our mental pictures of the present and future', further emphasising that photographs do act as a replacement of memory some instances. In my own work I am interested in this idea of seeing a memory in photographs, or at least certain parts of it being replaced by photographs; whether that be our personal photographs or ones that we have seen in mass media, or possibly more commonly nowadays, on social media sites. I am intrigued by the struggle of what we actually remember and what has just been filled in by photographs.

The Forum: Memory

I listened to a radio programme called 'The Forum' on BBC Radio Four, as the episode was titled 'Memory', and looked into the idea of memory itself, asking questions on why and how we remember things. The discussion was led by radio presenter Bridget Kendall, and the guests were Dorothy Bohm, a documentary photographer, Raymond Tallis, a neuroscientist (who now writes about the relationship between science and philosophy), and Zinovy Zink, author of 'History Thieves', a book in which he unravels his family history.

The broadcast was really interesting as it posed questions that I am really interested in in my work - why are memories formed? What impact do they have? Do we distort memories?

Photographer Dorothy Bohm very much uses photography as a way of capturing time and preserving memories. She mentions putting 'a limit to forgetfulness'. She also states: 'In my photography, I hold time. I have a picture of a child, and that child will be a child forever.' I think this really says something about the permanent and static nature of photography. Once something is photographed, it lives on for as long as the photograph survives, which, in the age of digital photography seems infinite. Printed photographs would eventually fade and become damaged and worn, but taking a photograph today feels as though it will exist forever, whether that be on computers, cds, or online. I think photography really does fill in the blanks for forgotten memories, but it also fails to tell the whole story and can fail to preserve a memory in this way.

Bridget Kendall suggests:

'The power of a visual image can imprint on your brain in such a way that all your other memories somehow get elbowed out, don't they? Do you sometimes feel that photography can do that, that it can preserve memory, but perhaps it also distorts the whole picture of what could be there as memories?'

I have recently been reading Susan Sontag's 'On Photography', and she tends to agree with this idea that photography can be linked to the distortion of memory, stating: 'photography implies that we know about the world if we accept it as the camera records it. But this is the opposite of understanding, which starts from not accepting the world as it looks.' Sontag also states 'photographs fill in blanks in our mental pictures of the present and future.' Sontag suggests that photography can distort memory, and mental images can be confused with photographic images.

I was interested to hear about memory from a neuroscience point of view, but Raymond Tallis stated that 'neuroscience can tell us very little about memory.' I think this is why I am so intrigued around the subject of memory - there seems to be no explanation as to how and why we visualise our memories. Raymond Tallis stated that memory is 'a present experience of a past experience' which I thought was a succinct way of describing it.

Raymond Tallis: 'what's already starting to emerge from our discussion is the extent to which memory isn't something utterly solitary and individual which you can find in the darkness of the individual skull, it's something that's collective, and shared.'

'We are, unlike any other creatures, part of a community of minds. We have a shared explicit public arena to which we together refer and we pay joint attention, once a prime example of that of course is that form of pooled memory called 'history'.

'But one of the quite disturbing things, and there is evidence of this from Psychology, that every time you recall a memory, you change it... that's what I find quite disturbing, even when you're trying to narrate your own life accurately the very process of doing it and telling yourself about yourself distorts what it is that you're trying to capture.'

This is what I find particularly interesting about memory - the ever-changing distortion of it. Things come in-and-out of focus for different reasons; stories possibly exaggerating certain parts, photographs filling in blanks, parts becoming completely forgotten. I think memory is very much a living thing, parts of it decay over time if you abandon them and don't recall the memory, whereas other parts become prominent and remain detailed if you think about them a lot, or if they have a lot of significance to you, and especially if you have photographs that serve as a reminder.

Raymond Tallis: 'I don't think that memory is entirely internally constructed; it has external constraints and external checks, and the very fact of making sense of ourselves in the context of public understanding of what we are, or an understanding of what we are that's drawn from public discourse.'

This is really interesting for me as my work deals with the idea of collective memory, and Tallis here suggests that memory is very much constructed by both the individual and the collective. We are affected by everything around us, and this all feeds into our memory.

Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton's collages really sum up Pop art and the feeling of that time. His work shows how advertising and mass imagery influenced interior design. It's interesting how his work becomes about memory and nostalgia for current audiences, but at the time it wasn't to do with that at all - it was about modern life. The use of magazine cuttings and and mass imagery from the time makes modern day viewers immediately think of the 60s. I like the idea of collaging imagery associated with a certain time in the past, to trigger memories for people, and to enforce this idea of 'shared' memory. The use of mass media is a really useful way of getting across this idea of collective memory, and shared experiences of the masses as most people have seen this sort of imagery.

In modern culture other things that we have in common are material things such as fashion/gadgets and media such as TV - which can show a certain era and trigger memories for people. I have started collecting imagery from magazines, but I'm also combining these images with my own personal imagery as I am interested in the relationship between personal and collective memory.

Nathan Ford

Last year I discovered artist Nathan Ford when I went to see the BP Portrait Award at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, in which his piece 'Abi' was featured. 'Abi' was one of my favourite pieces in the whole collection. It was probably the smallest and most 'quiet' image, compared to the other artworks in the exhibition which tended to be louder, more colourful and photographic.  I'm very interested in leaving parts of the image blank, either forgotten parts, or possibly the more personal/subjective parts. I am looking at the idea of shared memory, such as shared events most of us have experienced us in day-to-day life. I am now experimenting with trying to represent these general memories that we all share, by using familiar imagery, and also cutting out details, such as people, so that the image is less personal to one individual's memory, but to all of our's. I really like how the eye is so accurately represented with vivid colours in Ford's piece 'Abi', yet the rest of the portrait fades away to a few sketchy lines, before fading completely away. I am really interested in how this technique can relate to memory, and the fragility of memory. To me, the detailed eye represents what you might vividly remember about someone - what lines represent forgotten details, like what clothes they were wearing. Although, in my own work, it tends to be the opposite. A person's eye would be a very personal memory that not everyone could relate to, so in fact this might be where my image fades out, whereas the clothes and other more generic details I would depict in a more detailed way as these are familiar items that everyone has seen and can relate to. This would be the case with other material items such as phones, mp3 players, toys etc. that most people own and see every day, so I would depict these items in detail or as photographs, unlike faces which are personal and recognisable to less people so I would leave these blank.

There is a Place...

Earlier this year I saw an exhibition called 'There is a Place...' at New Art Gallery Walsall, which ran between 20th January and 14th April 2012. The exhibition explored psychic connectivity to landscape, featuring 'drawings, paintings and prints of seemingly generic urban and suburban views which, on closer inspection, have the ability to evoke personal and collective memories'. (Exhibition guide, New Art Gallery Walsall). 

Laura Oldfield Ford's exhibited drawings of generic urban spaces, playing with the idea of collective memories. As her work depicts places in Walsall, I'm sure it triggers a lot of personal memories for visitors of the gallery. This is what my own work is concerned with: - portraying generic and collective memories that I believe will trigger memories in most people. 

I really like how Ford uses biro in meticulous detail to represent the well remembered parts of a memory, and some parts are much more loosely drawn and fade out to nothing - representing the forgotten. I particularly like it when Ford draws the more sketchy/ loose parts in the foreground, as though you are zooming in on a part of the memory which is in the background, and other parts are blurred. 

I would like to try using similar techniques to Ford. I think using biro would be a good way of showing the detailed areas, as it is quite linear and bold, representing the well remembered parts of a memory. I am also becoming more interested in the importance of landscape in a memory; I want to look into this further as time and place very much go together in terms of memory. 

George Shaw's work is based upon his journeys back to his childhood home, the Tile Hill Estate, Coventry. Places had changes/disappeared, the familiar had become displaced and his memories had been distorted over time. I am quite interested in how our perceptions of things can be different as a child, such as bigger or more idyllic, thus distorting our memories as adults. In Shaw's paintings, he uses Humbrol enamel, which is best-known for a teenage boy's first choice for painting model aeroplanes. I like that even the medium that Shaw uses makes reference to his adolescence - adding more to the content and feeling of nostalgia. I am interested in this idea of using items that will evoke nostalgia in people in my work: - so it could be a useful tool in triggering memories. 

Tierney Gearon

Tierney Gearon's double-exposure photographs evoke feelings of childhood memories and family life. I find Gearon's photographs very positive with their bright colours and beautiful backdrops, relating to idyllic childhood memories. The bright colours seem to represent a child's view of the world - one innocence and happiness. I have been interested in portraying the ideals of childhood in my previous work. I am still very much interested in portraying memories, but of shared experiences of a more recent time; of contemporary life. My work tends to be of positive memories like Gearon's though, which is something I want to continue. I like my work to be quite lighthearted, concerned with experiences of the every day that most of us share. Gearon's use of double-exposure means that the images blur into eachother, relating to confused memories, which is a technique I could use in my own work. I like the idea of layering images together, however, I am more interested in doing this in a more 3-dimensional way so that the images physically overlap. I like using a range of different papers and media, as a way of enhancing the idea that the memory is fragmented, so the best way of me creating overlapping images is in a physical way rather than a digital one.

David Hockney

I am quite interested in the photo collages of David Hockney. Hockney photographs a single subject from several different viewpoints and then collages them into a composite image. His work is inspired by Cubism but is a much more contemporary way of depicting the disjointed aspects of a Cubist picture. His work reminds us of how the human eye jumps around an image to see the whole picture. 

In my own work I am really interested in the fragmentation of photography/images that Hockney has used in these works. I think the disjointed technique really helps depict the fragmented/distorted nature of memories, and how the mind might jump around parts of the image whilst recalling a memory, as aspects come in and out of focus and different parts of remembered. I also really like the effect of having images of the same subject from different angles, showing the 3-dimensional object on a flat surface. This may help me to create the experience for viewers of actually being there, being inside the memory as if it is your own, rather than looking at a still singular photograph, which I think would make the viewer feel like more of a bystander of someone else's memory. I really want to try and consider the viewer's perspective when I'm creating my work, as I am interested in the idea of 'collective memory' and triggering memories in other people, so need to think carefully about the relationship between art and audience. 

Robert Littman Floating in My Pool - I particularly like this piece as the image is more disjointed than his other works. I think the composition is more interesting, as Hockney has placed two parts of the image on the far right, making the image look disconnected from itself. There is also quite a lot of negative space within the piece. I want to try and use these techniques in my own work as I think it relates really well to memory. Memories are often not a seamless image, and parts are more detailed and a larger scale than others, appearing very fragmented as you recall the memory. Also, the negative space can relate really well to the forgotten parts of the memory; the details that have been completely lost with time. 

'How memory has changed' - Frieze Article

Frieze Article
Issue 141 September 2011

http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/tell-tales/

Memory itself has changed due to technology and digital media. Seeing imagery repeatedly makes us all think that we have the same memory - when it's just mass imagery that creates this idea of 'collective memory'. It's hard for us to distinguish between what we actually remember, and what we just think we remember because we've seen photos from our childhood. The invention of photography has completely changed memory - especially as it's a very accurate representation of memory. I am interested in this idea of how photography can shape memory, and whether memory itself has changed in recent decades because of the increase in photography, technology and mass media imagery.

Claire Harvey

The work of Claire Harvey involves themes of people and space. Harvey creates 2-dimensional paintings of people, and then transforms this into an installation through the use of overhead projectors and freestanding boards, creating a space the viewer can walk through. As the viewer walks through the room, they cast shadows onto the work, and they themselves become the work and enter this world of other outlines of people. Unfortunately, I have only seen photos of the work and not been able to see the work in a gallery context, which is a shame as I imagine experiencing the work must be a lot more impressive, and necessary to the work as it deals with themes of physical space. Even from just seeing imagery of Harvey's work though, I get a sense that at people in their own world, and that you feel like you could become one of these marks on the wall by stepping closer/into the work.

I really like the fragmented nature to Harvey's work; it is similar to David Hockney's work in some ways but is far more physical and involves the viewer more. I am interested in the idea of fragmentation in my own work, as I have found it helps to convey how memory can be quite fragmented - different parts drifting in and out of focus depending on which parts we remember and how well we remember them. What I like about the fragmentation in Harvey's work is that the edges of the acetate are visible, without being intrusive and distracting form the piece. It just gives a disjointed effect rather than looking like a mass of rectangles. I want to experiment with using acetate, tracing paper and other similar materials in my own work, as I think that they would work well to show the transient nature of memories, unlike much more permanent looking materials like canvas or wood. I also really like the idea of projecting images onto the wall, so that the viewer could step into the space,a s though they were stepping into someone's, or their own, memories. I think this would really help get the idea of collective memory and shared experience across to the viewer, so that they could become part of the art work. I like the idea of trying to bring my work into the 3-dimensional, as it could help to further portray what happens when we recall memories, and how they drift in and out of focus.

Other Sources

I have started to collect imagery from magazines of celebrities out and about shopping, to merge with my own personal photographs of people shopping. I am interested in the idea of whether mass media imagery that we are bombarded with becomes confused with our own personal memories. I want to explore the idea of whether the visualisation of our memories incorporates what we actually remember, as well as images that we have seen over time in mass media, and possibly begin to merge with our personal memories. It's hard to know whether what we visualise when we recall a memory is actually what we experienced, or whether photographs have crept into our memories over time, and distorted our memory. Using images from other sources such as magazines also helps with the idea of 'collective memory' that I am interested in, as they are the sort of imagery that the general public have seen, unlike my own photographs which are more personal and exclusive, making them less translatable to the viewer. I like the idea of using both my own and secondary imagery, as it plays with the distortion between personal and collective memory.  

Gathering imagery

 Few photos I have taken of people shopping in Birmingham City Centre.

Ideas

Out shopping

• phone shops/starbucks everywhere
• people listening to ipods
• people on phones/iphones
• bags of shopping

Gigs

• disrupted view
• crowds taking pictures.recording on phones/cameras
• lights/changing effects
• bar/holding drinks
• cramped crowd

Pubs/drinking

• Empty glasses
• Beer gardens
• Cocktail pitchers
• Outside smoking

Clubbing

• Crowds of people
• Bar queues
• Queues outside of clubs
• Rows of bars/kebab houses
• Rows of taxis
• Glass on floor
• Empty bottles

Initial thoughts

Last year my work was based around memory, with emphasis on the distortion and fragmentation of memories. I am particularly interested in how we visualise our memories, and trying to depict this in a physical piece of art. I find this topic to be a constant struggle and inspiration, as it is something that is not tangible and very subjective, so I always feel that improvements can be made in my work to improve the depiction of memory. The visualisation of a memory is something that is very hard to pin down, as science can't even really yet give the answers on how and why we picture our memories. I am particularly interested in the idea of collective memory; that our memories are influenced by other people's, by mass media imagery, by culture, and by shared experiences. With my work I am aiming to produce art that the general audience can relate to, see themselves in and feel like it is a familiar memory/experience to them. I also find this a difficult thing to achieve, as who is to say whether one person visualises their memories the same as the next person? Are we all different in this? Previous work I have done has very much focused on childhood memories: - experiences that pretty much every child has been through. I tried to think of generic situations which are familiar to nearly everyone, such as school days, playing at the park etc. I think most people could relate to the situations I had thought up. As soon as I start trying to depict a memory however, it becomes clear that it is very hard to include the whole audience in this supposed 'shared memory'. Even if every single viewer has a childhood memory of playing at the park, when I get imagery of parks it tends to be very modern - the gadgets, fashion, architecture are all signifiers of what sort of era the memory is supposed to be from. Therefore, a lot of the memories I try to depict relate most strongly to my own generation more than any other. I am going to continue with this theme, as I can combine my own personal memories with this idea of the 'collective' memory. I don't plan for my work to be completely exclusive though, I still hope that all viewers will be able to relate my work to their own memories, it's just I think this will happen most naturally for my own generation. The age of the audience of course is not the only factor, the sort of everyday life I try to depict is very Westernised and usually obviously relates most strongly to the British public.

I have decided that I am going to move away slightly from trying to depict childhood memories; I don't believe that memory always has to be about childhood. Firstly I am going to look more into generally the shared experiences a lot of people have; this may be the experiences shared by a lot of my generation, of the British public, of students, or just generally of modern life.