Mediated Memories Memory, Remembrance and Memorial.

Mediated MemoriesMemory, Remembrance and

Memorial

The history of recording memories

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Joseph WrightThe Corinthian Maid, 1782-1784Paul Mellon Collection

http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/timage_f?object=61396&image=15725&c=gg61

Pliny The Elder

The Gutenberg press with its wooden and later metal movable type printing brought down the price of printed materials and made such materials available for the masses. It remained the standard until the 20th century. During the centuries, many newer printing technologies were developed based on Gutenberg's printing machine e.g. offset printing.

*http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blJohannesGutenberg.htm cited 15.8.06

We owe the name "Photography" to Sir John Herschel, who first used the term in 1839, the year the photographic process became public. (*1) The word is derived from the Greek words for light and writing.The first successful picture was produced in June/July 1827 by Niépce, using material that hardened on exposure to light. This picture required an exposure of eight hours.*

*http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/ cited 15.8.06

Photography

The first recording devices were scientific instruments used to capture and study sound waves. These devices were capable of recording voices and other sounds long before the phonograph. The most famous of these was Leon Scott's 1857 Phonoautograph.*

*http://www.recording-history.org/HTML/musictech1.html cited 15.8.06

Sound Recording

Memories in a shoebox

The photograph is not only a visual documentor record of an event, it may also be viewed asa memory site. Memories committed to photographs were often stored in photo albums or a shoebox for private viewing.

How does the contemporary practice of photo-sharing challenge/alter our relationship with these objects of memory?

In 1946 my father served in the BCOF in Hiroshima. These are some of our family memories.

Souvenir image: Hiroshima after the bomb (1945)

My father (left) in Japan in 1946

Mother with children, Hiroshima 1946

Australian soldiers in Hiroshima prefecture, 1946.

My Mum (right) with friends, St Kilda pier (1940’s)

Making Memory Matter:digital technologies and personal photography.

Goodbye shoebox, Hello database



Memories are shared across a wide range of digital mediums and networks. Twitter, facebook, myspace, youtube, blogs and websites. The physical stuff of memory becomes meshed within the heart of new technologies.






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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFfG3PyI-Ao

Why do we record and share our memories online?

The Camera-phone:Memory Making and Mobile Media

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The shoebox of photos has been replaced by thecomputer hard drive. The “Kodak moment” has become the “mobile moment”.

Mobile phone footage challenges traditional broadcast models. Mobile phones have become a key tool for providing marginalized voices and activists with access to mainstream media.

The world in the palm of your hand

The London Tube bombing on July 7, 2006

7/7 London bomb terrorist attack on bus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuhBdHc8Nqs

Final 8 Minutes Of Phone Call From Flight 11 On 9/11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Tr0u35Tek

As Reading (2008, p.356) suggests:

Just as the shift from the public clock to the private timepiece or wrist watch shifted the individual’s relationship to time from the public domain to the private body, so too the mobile phone suggests profound changes to human beings relationships to knowledge, communication and recall.

(2008, p.356)

Execution of Saddam Hussein mobile footage.

Source: http://www.infowars.net/pictures/jan07/040107Saddam3.jpg cited 4.5.09

http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?&next_url=/watch%3Fv%3DlvIK5M9lOOY

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1085777.1085783

Van Dijck observes that:

“media technologies are not just a method of building up a stockpile of personal memories, but their function is concurrently formative, directive and communicative.

They enable the self to grow and mature, to give meaning and direction to one’s past and present” (2007, p.171).

Ubiquitous computing:Sharing memories across the network(s).

These digitised memories are much more than an exercise in recall or recitation, but “a key to our emotional understanding of ourselves and the world”.

(Gibbons, 2007, p.4).

Recovery

In 2006 I used a camera-phone to record my 2 year recovery period from a serious illness.

Digital and networked media offers unique modes of expression and new ways to store share and document the artifacts of memory. Also new ways to engage in the act of remembrance.



British Artist Katie Lips has developed many projects and applications that enable people to save, store and share text messages.

Mobile Phones as Memorial Sites

Mobile Memories are shaping personal andcollective acts of remembrance.

Virtual Poppy for the mobile phone.

The increasing digitization of our personalities in the

“Knowledge Age” will render the mobile an important

instrument of exchange. (Golding 2005:238)

Golding, P. (2005) The future of the mobile in the 3G era. Thumb Culture: The Meaning of Mobile Phones in Society,

Glotz, P; Bertschi, S; and Locke, C. (EDs) (2005)Transaction Publishers, London, U.K.

Personal photos were found hidden inside the covers of mobile phones in a recycling plant in Tokyo.



http://www.s9.com/images/portraits/33744_Rinko-Kikuchi.jpg

Vincent (2005) observes:

“Each mobile phone is uniquely reflecting the users life at

that point in time; so the device ‘holds’ the memories,

the sentiments that are associated with the text messages

and numbers stored on the phone, the appointments,

the ringtones chosen and the pictures held on the phone

and not in the wallet and so on.”

In a world of digital immediacy, the remembranceof the people, experiences and events that shape our personal and collective identity are arguablyless bound by the traditions/customs of the past.

Photo of my sister’s keyring. After she diedI kept her phone number in my contacts.

Remembranceand

Online Memorials

According to Van Dijck (2007, p.48), “memory items are becoming networked objects, constructed in the commonality of the World Wide Web”.

As Green observes:

Media technologies and practices of mediation have long beenconsidered central to subjective, socio-cultural and institutional forms of remembering, memorialising, and forgetting, and it is increasingly recognised that new mobile media are again intervening in memory practices in diverse ways.

This is reflected in both the growing attention paid to mobile media of memory in the computing and commercial domains, and by a recognition of shifting cultural patterns of memory-making in changing times.(2008, p.267)

http://www.mydeathspace.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyNT3IC_rTU

http://www.lastingtribute.co.uk/latesttributes

Will our final resting place be online?

http://www.lastingtribute.co.uk/poppyfield

Virtual Poppy Field

online memorial for Rachel Joy Scott (Columbine shooting victim).

Source: http://www.racheljoyscott.com/ cited 23.4.09

http://vcj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/1/57

A project created by Sandra Cook and Kerry Sunderland

http://journeybeyondroadtrauma.org/

Watch welcome video

Users actively participate in the collection of site content.

GPS and WEB 2.0 technologies create interactive user experiences that promote engagement with content.

A funeral in WORLD OF WARCRAFT

A World of Warcraft funeral for a fellow guild member who passed away in real life is ambushed by another guild. Does this blur the borders between game and reality?

http://www.spike.com/video/world-of-warcraft/2679508

“Memory involves both (the perception of)a certain body state and a certain mind state”.

Van Dijck, 2007, p.31

I once went for a virtualride in a virtual speedboat on the virtual water with a virtual

friend.

Are my memories of this experience real?

http://www.pool.org.au/video/panda08/panda_memories

A young woman remembers her childhood inSecond Life.

“We experience a distinct form of fascinationfor the opportunity to witness the lives of otherswhen they seem to belong to the same historicalworld that we do” (Nichols, 2001,p.xi)

Taken from Nichols, B. (2001). Introduction to Documentary,Indiana University Press,U.S.A.

Social Media provides opportunities to challenge traditional notions of documentary by creating

Hybrid Documentary Forms which promote

high levels of user participation.

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What do you look for in a documentary?

• A good piece of storytelling

• Memorable characters and locations.

• A political edge.

• A theme which resonates with you.

• Aesthetics and choice of media.

• Something that leaves you wanting to know

more or get involved.

Ask yourself: What are the advantages of

INTERACTIVE or PARTICIPATORY documentary?

What makes a good participatory documentary?

• A subject you are passionate about and will go the distance.

• Choose a subject and stick to it.

• Good access to your subject and research data.

• Set a realistic goal that can be achieved in 12 weeks.

• Work within your skillbase and focus on the content.

• Know your target audience.

•Fully utilize links, network capabilities, etc to provide user

with a dynamic experience.

• Reference quotes and theories. Your reader may also wish to extend their knowledge of the subject.

• Stay within the scope of your project. You can always expand on your documentary at a later date.

• Always be aware of your obligations. Where necessary obtain release forms.

•Most importantly, never loose sight of your governing concept. Write a premise or mission statement which you can refer to if you get lost.

Important things to remember whenMaking your social media doco.

What media forms best communicate your idea?

• images.• text.• photos.• video. • forums.• chat.• wikis.

Okay, so you have an idea.

How will an audience access and engage with your documentary content?

• static photos and text / audio.• user interaction via hyperlinks. • an interface that promotes high level interaction via combination of forum,chat, twitter, flickr, youtube and blog.• an interface where users can upload content and add to the shape and flavour of the narrative.

* Remember content is king, so even though you may want to push the medium, never let the bells and whistles of social media overshadow the message.

Architecture of a Narrative: How will the user navigate the site?

Post-production (includes testing)

Start putting all the pieces together. This may includeediting and resizing photos /videos to be uploaded.

Visiting your architecture/visual guide and organising your work in folders so you know where every piece in the puzzle fits. Organization is vital, you need to be Thorough abouut this from day one.

Completion (otherwise known as relief.)

Once you have completed the project and tested It for bugs, errors, spelling, links, etc. It’s a goodIdea to get a peer to test your project. Take a moment and jot down some thoughts on the process, that’s if you haven’t been already doing thatIn your blog.

Evaluation

So how did you do? What worked and what would you do differently next time?

Reflect on the process and think about theFactors that have influenced the stages ofyour documentary. What are the valuable aspects of your project? What role did theory play?

“Human identity now dwells within machines and machine-made memories” (Dyen, 2001, p.4).

Bibliography and Suggested Readings

Chipchase, J. (2005). Mobile Phone as Personal Shrine. Retrieved August 31, 2008, from http://www.janchipchase.com/blog/archives/2005/10/post_2.html.

Downing, F. (2000). Remembrance and the design of place: College Station: Texas A&M University press.

Dyens, O. (2001). The sadness of the Machine. Retrieved february 17, 2009, from http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=320

Fivush, R. ( 2008). Remembering and reminiscing: How individual lives are constructed in family narratives. Memory Studies, Vol 1, 49-58.

Gibbons, J. (2007). Contemporary Art and Memory: Images of recollection and remembrance. London: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd.

Grace, H. (2007). Waiting for Me in Hjorth, L. (2007). Waiting for Immediacy. IDP Printers/ Yonsei University, pp. 28.

Green, N. (2009). Mobility, Memory and Identity. In G. Googin & L. Hiorth (Eds) (2008). Mobile Technologies: From Telecommunications to Media. This edition published in Taylor & Francis e-library.

Gye, L. (2007). Picture this: the impact of Mobile Camera Phones on Personal Photographic Practices. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2, June 2007, pp. 279–288.

Hartley, S. (2007). Remembrance: Phone or Facebook? Retrieved August 31, 2008,from http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/technology/s/1022414_remembrance_phone_or_facebook.

Jacucci, G, Oulasvirta, A & Salovaara, A. (2007). Active construction of experience through mobile media: a field study with implications for recording and sharing. Retrieved February 2, 2008, from http://www.springerlink.com/content/x3h3l38hqp8r3p11/.

Katz, J.E. (2006). Magic in the Air: Mobile communication and the transformation of social life.New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.

Keep , D (2009) The portable shrine: Remembrance, memorial, and the mobile phone. Australian Journal of Communications, Published by The University of Queensland, Vol 36 (1) 2009.

Ling, R. (2008). New tech, new ties: How mobile communication is reshaping social cohesion. London: The MIT Press.Papastergiadis, N. (2006). Spatial aesthetics: Art, place and the everyday, Rivers Oram Press, London.

Reading, A. (2008). The mobile family Gallery? Gender, memory and the cameraphone. Retrieved February 3, 2008, from http://www.kirj.ee/public/trames_pdf/2008/issue_3/trames-2008-3-355-365.pdf.

Riviere, C. (2005). Mobile Camera Phones: A New Form of “Being Together” in Daily Interpersonal Communication in Ling, R. & Pederson, P.E. (2005). Mobile Communications: Re-negotiation of the Social Sphere, Springer-Verlag London Limited, U.S.A.

Rossington, M & Whitehead, A. (2007). Theories of Memory: A Reader, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

Sarvas, R , Oulasvirta, A & Jacucci, G. (2005). Building social discourse around mobile photos: a systemic perspective. Retreived June 17th, 2008, from http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1085777.1085783

Singer, J & Conway, M. (2008). Should we forget forgetting? Memory Studies, Vol 1, 279-284.

Van Dijck, J. (2007). Mediated Memories in the Digital Age, Stanford University Press, California.

Van Dijck, J. (2008). Digital photography: communication, identity, memory. Visual Communication, Vol. 7, No. 1, 57-76. Retrieved February 2, 2008, fromhttp://vcj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/1/57

Van House, N, Davis, M, Ames, M, Finn, M &Viswanathan, V. (2007). The Uses of Personal Networked Digital Imaging: An Empirical Study of Cameraphone Photos and Sharing. Retreived February 18 th, 2009, From http://fusion.sims.berkeley.edu/GarageCinema/pubs/pdf/pdf_0E509535-C2B7-4659-A40D42E7C02EBA1C.pdf

Yates, F. (1992). The Art of Memory, Pimlico, London.

Yeo, R. (2008). Notebooks as memory aids: Precepts and practices in early modern England, Memory Studies, Jan 2008; vol. 1: pp. 115 - 136

Bibliography and Suggested Readings

Mediated Memories Memory, Remembrance and Memorial.

Documents

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