Autor/es
Descripción
ver mas
Colaborador
Feierstein, Daniel
Materias
Idioma
spa
Extent
314 p.
Derechos
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 2.0 Genérica (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Formato
application/pdf
Identificador
Abstract
How do we visually interact? How do images get involved in our relationship with the past? Which is the relationship between image and memory? “Images for memory” or “cinema of memory” (Sánchez-Biosca, 2006) are usually referred, as if this relationship was “taken for granted” (das Fraglos-gegeben) (Schutz 1993: 103); that is, referring to a particular level of experience that does not seem to need further analysis. However, “a shift of attention” can transform something absolute to something problematic: consequently, does the image – either static or in motion- contain memorialistic qualities? What do we remember when we see an image? What could an image remeber?
From a multidisciplinary theoretical approach (taking elements from sociology, the history of art and photography, Visual Studies, neuroscience and psychology of memory), where Alfred Schutz’ work will have a predominant site, we will move away from the canon of studies on memory in order to give space to theorists who have been displaced or relegated in the social study of the past. Within the studies on memory, especially those focused on collective memory; imagination is usually referred to in marginal mode, often associated to fiction. The main contribution of this thesis lies at this point. It aims to highlight the creative nature of memory, as psychologists and neuroscientists (Edelman, Vygotsky) have pointed out; every recollection is, at the same time, an act of imagination, memory is nothing but a “remembering present” (Edelman).
It is assumed that memory and imagination share an attribute: to make the absent present. Husserlian Phenomenology, however, establishes that an image is a presentification, turning into real in the process of neutralization of consciousness. Despite the analog or indexical character that can be attributed to an image, this encloses no meaning in itself, it tells us nothing about the sense that it presents: the image has no other semantics but its own pragmatic. Memory shares similar characteristics, it can give objects to the conscience and also works according to the needs of the present.
The study case will focus on the work of the Canadian filmmaker, of Armenian descent, Atom Egoyan which so far consists of 15 feature films. Through this material we will explore the illusory nature of the past; the past as an illusion not in a sense of fiction or delusion but of creativity in the sense of "remembered present", thus emphasizing the role of the imagination. In this sense, the production and circulation of images helps us to maintain and settle this illusion. His filmography, rather than taking for granted the relationship between image and memory, allows to problematize it, since it presents stories and characters mediated by images, through which the foregoing are related, accessing or living with the past by their mean or by way of the various devices of recording and reproduction. This usage problematizes in family, private and everyday life scopes, as well as in public and massive mediums. The absence of a mother in the household core in Family Viewing (1987) and the shooting of a film about the Armenian genocide in Ararat (2002) are reflections of above mention areas.
By inquiring about the processes of memory and its connection with the images, this thesis studies the place of imagination in our social relations, both in the past as well as in the present. Adding an element as the imagination in this analysis, this study further suggests, besides, the role of emotion, empathy and understanding in our relationship with predecessors and contemporaries.
From a multidisciplinary theoretical approach (taking elements from sociology, the history of art and photography, Visual Studies, neuroscience and psychology of memory), where Alfred Schutz’ work will have a predominant site, we will move away from the canon of studies on memory in order to give space to theorists who have been displaced or relegated in the social study of the past. Within the studies on memory, especially those focused on collective memory; imagination is usually referred to in marginal mode, often associated to fiction. The main contribution of this thesis lies at this point. It aims to highlight the creative nature of memory, as psychologists and neuroscientists (Edelman, Vygotsky) have pointed out; every recollection is, at the same time, an act of imagination, memory is nothing but a “remembering present” (Edelman).
It is assumed that memory and imagination share an attribute: to make the absent present. Husserlian Phenomenology, however, establishes that an image is a presentification, turning into real in the process of neutralization of consciousness. Despite the analog or indexical character that can be attributed to an image, this encloses no meaning in itself, it tells us nothing about the sense that it presents: the image has no other semantics but its own pragmatic. Memory shares similar characteristics, it can give objects to the conscience and also works according to the needs of the present.
The study case will focus on the work of the Canadian filmmaker, of Armenian descent, Atom Egoyan which so far consists of 15 feature films. Through this material we will explore the illusory nature of the past; the past as an illusion not in a sense of fiction or delusion but of creativity in the sense of "remembered present", thus emphasizing the role of the imagination. In this sense, the production and circulation of images helps us to maintain and settle this illusion. His filmography, rather than taking for granted the relationship between image and memory, allows to problematize it, since it presents stories and characters mediated by images, through which the foregoing are related, accessing or living with the past by their mean or by way of the various devices of recording and reproduction. This usage problematizes in family, private and everyday life scopes, as well as in public and massive mediums. The absence of a mother in the household core in Family Viewing (1987) and the shooting of a film about the Armenian genocide in Ararat (2002) are reflections of above mention areas.
By inquiring about the processes of memory and its connection with the images, this thesis studies the place of imagination in our social relations, both in the past as well as in the present. Adding an element as the imagination in this analysis, this study further suggests, besides, the role of emotion, empathy and understanding in our relationship with predecessors and contemporaries.
Título obtenido
Doctor de la Universidad de Buenos Aires en Ciencias Sociales
Institución otorgante
Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales