A picture is an image is a memory
Jan Winkelmann
“How’s it going, you dirty bastard?”
is wormed out of him by the voice at the other end of the line, not noticing
that all passers-by in his vicinity – taken aback by such an outburst of
scatological language – looked somewhat consternated and no less
irritated; of course they couldn’t have known that for years already the
two had cultivated this exceptionally amicable – one could even say,
loving – greeting. Joyfully he realised that in the very near future they
would both be in the same city, and that, as a result, it was time to meet
again for an escapade like those that sporadically took place during the past
decade. They last met on the edge of an exhibition paying tribute to Andy
Warhol, the Grandmaster of Reproduction, indeed, an exhibition without a single
original by Warhol. Instead, there were only reproductions of reproductions of
reproductions to be seen: Warhol is one of few artists whose pictures
immediately go into one’s head, stick to one’s memory and are thus
– as once aptly put by one of Warhol’s colleagues –
“often just as good in catalogues as in real life.” However, there
obviously still seems to be a difference between actual reality and media
reality, i.e. reality as transmitted via the media. An ‘Old School’
approach, or rather a hackneyed quote? A friend recently told him that she
watched – from the window of her hotel near the World Trade Center
– United Flight 175 as it hit the South Tower. Although she only would
have to have looked out of the window to experience reality ‘live’
in all its – hitherto inconceivably perverse – dimensions, her gaze
remained transfixed on the shining surface of the TV screen; for here, in spite
of their abstraction through transmission, the images somehow appeared more
real than the reality occurring beyond the shining surface of the tinted hotel
window. The pictures of September 11 – like innumerable other images
– immediately became part of collective memory. But have you ever thought
about what this oft-cited ‘collective memory’ actually is, i.e.
might conceivably be? Let us consider the term more closely. It appears that
this collective capacity to remember is primarily based on the power of
pictures. Is it simply due to the immediacy of visual information that images
are bound to be the basis of what we call a collective memory? Certainly,
however acoustic and olfactory sensations are no less immediate, if indeed not
more direct, yet they do not possess the power and capacity of images to
function in terms of collective memory. This may also be due to the fact that
sounds and smells are not equally suited for (worldwide) transportation (via
the media). Of course, almost everyone knows the smell of freshly percolated
coffee, yet one hardly conceives of the smell of fresh coffee as being part of
collective memory. Which brings us to the notions of relevance and lastingness
as significant definition criteria. Innately too banal, it is difficult to
ascribe the smell of coffee to collective memory. Things are slightly different
in the case of acoustic sensations in the form of music, although music might
conceivably resemble a private form of memory within the context of collective
memory. Or do you have the same memories as I do when you listen to “Sunny”
by Boney M? I would claim that this is not the case, although the song itself
is part of the collective memory at least of a specific segment of humanity.
However, then again, for the majority of the world’s population, it is
not. I wouldn’t declare that Boney M wasn’t played in Ulan Bator in
the late 1970s. But I can also imagine that – in that place and at that
time – a different song was at the top of the charts that was/is integral
to the collective memory of the local population, in much the same way that Boney
M is to my/our memory. Thus, according to geographical subdivisions, there seem
to exist more than one collective memory, not only in the realm of music. For
undoubtedly, a photo of the dead Uwe Barschel in the bathtub of a Geneva hotel
will not necessarily conjure memories for people in Marrakech. Moreover –
as illustrated by the afore-mentioned example – it seems that negative
and thus emphatic events are readily recorded by collective memory; or are you
able to vividly recollect pictures of Diana Spencer’s marriage to Prince
Charles; of the way she looked innocent and shy, yet somehow happy? If, seeking
a lowest common denominator to help define (whichever form of) collective
memory, we were to agree on media communication, this would mean that a collective
memory could plausibly only exist within and/or through, i.e. with the aid of,
the mass media. This in turn leads to the conclusion that a collective memory
could never have existed before the worldwide expansion of the
mass media. “... by the way, I’m standing in front of Andy
Warhol’s grave. It’s pretty banal, considering that it’s Andy
Warhol’s grave. Anyway, see you soon.”
(Translated by Oliver Kossack)
This
text is going to be published: Andreas Kaufmann: Images without
Imagery“, Cat. Bunkier Sztuki, Krakau, 2003.
© 2003 Jan Winkelmann