So today, whilst attempting to recover some filming off a very temperamental camera, I crossed paths with one of my tutors, Mike. He asked about some of the video work I've recently been doing. After showing him the videos in the newly refitted projection room (which is awesome) we began talking about the work and ideas surrounding it.
Bruce Nauman:
The way in which the paint is applied to the body, resonates with the nature of my video's process, as the pixels wash over the moving figure, like liquid paint. The nature of the portrait also may have some relevance to the work, the nature of looking at the'self' and the image of our 'selves'.
Another thing that Mike suggested i look into was 'False Memory Syndrome'. A psychoanalytic term for the study of memories that are either distortions of original memories or completely fabricated. This suggestion came when explaining my concern with the fallible nature of visual perception and increasingly so visual reproduction in the mind. This theory, of which there is evidence to be found, also enhances my curiousity with our relationship to the past; the association of our selves with something that is no more, in one sense or another. I'll be bold and suggest: Memories we have to remember aren't memories at all; obscured by the ambiguity of perception through time. The things that placed us in the present, those are our real memories; living through us in the now.
What are false memories? Because of the re constructive nature of memory, some memories may be distorted through influences such as the incorporation of new information. There are also believed-in imaginings that are not based in historical reality; these have been called false memories, pseudo-memories and memory illusions. They can result from the influence of external factors, such as the opinion of an authority figure or information repeated in the culture. An individual with an internal desire to please, to get better or to conform can easily be affected by such influences. False Memory Syndrome Foundation
Here the writer Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen discusses the function of false memory within the context of Freud's career. The reason I have highlighted the conclusion here is to draw attention to the relative relationship between what is perceived and what is believed, we often accept that what we see effects our view of the world, though rarely do with accept that equally, our 'view' or 'idea' of the world can directly effect what we see.
It is thus one thing to say, as Israëls does, that these ‘memories’, these ‘scenes’ (and later, these ‘fantasies’) were not spontaneous, because they were the product of Freud’s theories and hermeneutic hubris. It is quite another to consider them as mere fictions, mere non-realities. The fact is that these theoretical fictions did become real in Dr Freud’s office, because of his patients’ willingness to accept his ‘solutions’. To speak of lies in regard to this fabrication of ‘psychical reality’ is too shortsighted: in the domain of psychotherapy, just as in that of human affairs in general, such a co-construction of reality is inevitable and normal. There, one never finds facts, only artefacts. In the end, if psychoanalysis must be criticised, it is not because it fabricates the evidence it adduces, nor because it creates the reality it purports to describe. It is because it refuses to recognise this and attempts to cover up the artifice. How a fabrication differes from a lie by Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen.
No comments:
Post a Comment