In the essay entitled “The angel of history in the age of the internet”, Campany explains that allegorical photography can be a medium for revisiting the past and reinterpreting it. He proposes the idea that photography’s well known critics such as Susan Sontag, Jean Baudrillard and Walter Benjamin have collectively argued that “we need to be on guard against the simple equation of photography with memory … just because a photograph is a document it does not follow that it’s meanings are clear … meaning requires … what Stan Douglas calls the “search for answers”. (Campany, 2016)
Using this as a framework to explore the subject of memory and photography based on my recent work in Clipstone’s reconstructed WW1 training trench for Assignment 3 led me to question how re-staging events alters collective memory[1]. I will explore the evidence to support and challenge the idea that “Photography may (even) be the enemy of memory” (Campany, 2016) through the study of contemporary historical re-enactment photography.
How does re-enactment photography[2] fit into the United Kingdom’s concept of heritage? In the 1980’s, Hewison described the heritage industry as a structure “largely imposed from above to capture a middle class nostalgia for the past as a golden age in the context of decline.” (Harrison, 2016:3.1), believing it prevented consumers from establishing an interest in contemporary art and critical culture, and what mattered was our relationship with the past, not the past itself. Identity depends on the knowledge people have of their family history or social group and so people have to recognize their past in order to ascertain their future. Hewison suggests that by viewing heritage through nostalgia, the past becomes Utopia rather than challenging the current problems although nostalgia “reinforces national identity when confidence is weakened or threatened.” (Hewison, as cited by Harrison, 2016:3.1)
Marxist critic Raphael Samuel disagreed with Hewison’s notion of heritage’s origins supporting Conservative political interests; indicating instead that heritage made the past “more democratic through emphasis on the lives of ordinary people.” (Harrison, 2016:3:2) Urry, too, responded to Hewison with the development of the “tourist gaze” proposing that “heritage to a large extent should be co-created by its consumers.” (Harrison, 2016:3.3). Hence photography and media both have a part to play in the updating of local heritage. Re-enactment photography alone does not meet the requirement for social change because most re-enactment groups have no political or social context; therefore, contemporary artists such as Jeremy Deller and Stan Douglas use allegory[3] to transport the observer through Campany’s “time tunnel” (Campany, 2016), in order to re-examine the past, come to terms with it (if necessary) and move forwards, thus using re-enactment as a catalyst to change.
Could re-enactment photography explore collective instruction rather than collective memory? Individual and collective memory are inter-related because all personal memories contain a “network of meanings that bring together personal with familial, the cultural, the economic, the social and the historical (Kuhn, 2002:4). In obtaining oral histories and reviewing evidence to build up collective memory, researchers find that some stories are revised, or have undergone “secondary revision” (Kuhn, 2002:5). Sontag argues that
“Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as collective memory-part of the same family of spurious notions as collective guilt. But there is collective instruction…What is called collective memory is not a remembering but a stipulating: that this is important, and this is the story about how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds.” (Sontag, 2003:76)
Individuals interpret events differently and are affected by economic, cultural and social factors, supporting Sontag’s belief that memory and guilt are individual whereas collective instruction is acknowledging responsibility for past actions, through historical knowledge, discourse and critical review. (Kattago, 2012:23)
With re-enactment, rules designed by the organizer for actors to follow create collective memories for the group in the present, but cultural histories are different providing only individual memories of the past. Unity is achieved through symbolism – re-creating badges, wearing uniforms, chanting and training to tell “the story of how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds.” (Sontag, 2003:76)
How would the viewer know whether Douglas’s straight photography[4], or Deller’s documentary photography is re-enactment? Allegorical work provides clues which can be read into the photograph. In Douglas’s “Abbot and Cordova 1971” the re-enactment portrayed the clash between police and citizens in the Gastown Riots. “Douglas stages a scene…which exploded mounting tensions between local hippies and law enforcement. Striving for historical accuracy, the work replicates local businesses, as well as music posters and newspapers from the time” (Zwirner, 2008). The chosen site was close to the original and reconstructed to look similar. Douglas controlled the stage by devising 9 sub scenes shot over three nights resulting in a composited photograph from 50 images. By using an elevated position, Douglas could separate the groups of people, positioned so the viewer questioned their roles. From oral histories and documented evidence, Douglas ascertained that middle and working class older men watched the event unfold from the sidelines, thus some characters were positioned as if watching a play. His work is displayed in the public sphere of an outdoor atrium, close to the original site, reinforcing the idea that this is site specific, representing the social and political struggles which happened to activate change.
The motivation for Deller’s dialogical[5] artwork “Battle of Orgreave” (2001) occurred because:
“Families were torn apart because of divided loyalties, the union movement was split on its willingness to support the National Union of Mineworkers, the print media especially contributed to the polarization of the arguments to the point where there appeared to be little space for a middle ground. So in all but name it became an ideological and industrial battle between the two sections of British society.” (Wilson, 2012)
Deller engaged with ex-miners and their communities spending eighteen months researching archives, collecting oral histories and working with Howard Giles from English Heritage to stage a re-enactment using re-enactors and the local community close to the original coking plant, resulting in a documentary film produced by Mike Figgis in 2001. The documentary was installed as part of Deller’s exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London and shown on Channel 4 television.
Could re-enactment photography be considered monumental? Bate theorises that “photography…revolutionalises memory: it multiplies and democratises it, gives it a precision and a truth never before attained in visual memory, and makes it possible to preserve the memory of time and chronical evolution,” (Le Goff cited in Bate, 2010:247) explaining that family photographs act like a memorial or monument to the past following Bourdieu’s argument of “establishing the truth of social remembrance” (Bourdieu cited by Bate 2010:248) closely. “Winters describes museums, films and TV in a way which the past is viewed through public representations of memories as “theatres of memory”” (Cherry, 2014:165) making Deller’s work an ephemeral[6] monument. Collective memory is therefore enshrined and memorialization recalls the past, through nostalgia and social change. Douglas would rather his work not be memorialized because Abbott and Cordova 1971 promotes conversation about the actual event rather than silence over a plaque or artist’s blurb (Alberro, 2010:20).
Is photography a medium which records the truth as the photographer intended? Contemporary re-enactment photography starts with research through archived documents and oral history. Although it is assumed photographs record truth, Joan Fontcuberta suggests that interpreting a document or picture is subjective, depending on the reader’s culture and knowledge of the world (Hildenbrand, 2008:113). The viewpoint of the photograph is predominantly that of the photographer. Known for his hyper-real work, Fontcuberta considers that a good photographer lies. When examining photographic archives, the viewer must be aware of the social context in which the photographs were taken (including political or authoritative issues of the time.) Moerman suggests a constructed image is more truthful to experience reality than a documented one because secondary revision of the memory of the event is a language which speaks to the mind and emotion (Moerman, 2012:8). Kuhn proposes that photographers
“may “speak silence”, absence and contraindication in as much as, indeed more than, presence, truth or authenticity and that while in the production of memory photographs might often repress this knowledge but they can also be used as a means of questioning identities and memories and of generating new ones.” (Kuhn, 2001:155)
Is photography able to re-write history? Photographs can convert the past to the present through re-imagining because “photographic truth is based upon a set of historically and culturally specific beliefs about photographs as documents.” (Rosler as cited by Wells, 2004:311a) Both Douglas and Deller’s work covered an event pivotal in cultural history. For Deller, research revealed the impression that media coverage from 1984 was in favour of the Government. Within the documentary, Tony Benn MP emphasized that BBC journalists “were ordered to transpose the order in such a way as to give the opposite impression” (Figgis, 2001). Ward supports this, quoting Benn, “They didn’t make a mistake…whoever gave the orders actually destroyed the truth of what they reported” (Ward, 2005:65). An apology (issued in 1991 by the BBC) for inadvertently reversing the film footage, contained within the documentary and shown alongside the original footage provided the context for redressing the balance of history. Douglas’s reflective photograph, whilst not displaying the outcome, provides a supporting paratext informing people that the riot successfully changed the city regulations. Benjamin’s Angel of History redeemed the past by causing a storm and enabling progress to be made. (Benjamin, 1973:260)
Is it possible to separate the reality of the re-enactment from the emotion of the original event? Baudrillard’s concept of simulation in media as a representation of real demonstrates real becomes commonplace to reality. The image of simulation is simulacrum which has different feelings and emotions to reality. Simulation aims to mislead without having all the qualities of simulacrum. Simulation happens in real life and the experience is used against the participants so that they cannot tell the falseness of the imitation (Sandoz 2003). Deller’s mining community volunteers were involved in the original battle; however, the simulation stirred up real feeling and emotions, leading to chaos, hindering identification of the original photographs from the simulation.
So, is “Photography the enemy of memory” as Campany (Campany, 2016) proposes? Supporting this question is the argument of whether collective memory exists, or whether, as Sontag suggests, all memory is individual. Re-enactment can never be the same as the original because people come from different cultures and critical discourse so it must be examined from a different perspective. The outcome is an image (or set of images) that only a few truly understand, offering different viewpoints of the event. However, in the search for answers, the truth may have been uncovered, through oral history and photography but is only ever as accurate as the recorder. Although initially I questioned the quote, having considered the evidence, I would support Campany’s hypothesis that photography is the enemy of memory and in order to understand an event, photographs should be questioned further; and if necessary scrutinized using a “time tunnel” (Campany, 2016) to revisit the past in order to critically move forward. Perhaps we need more than just photographs themselves.
Word count including references 1879 words
Word count excluding references 1342 words
Word count for footnotes 164 words
References
Anon (2016) Allegory. Oxford Dictionaries [online] Available from: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/allegory [last accessed 6th September 2016].
Anon (2016) Collective memory. Oxford Dictionaries [online] Available from: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/collective-memory [last accessed 6th September 2016].
Anon (2016) Dialogical. Oxford Dictionaries [online] Available from: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/dialogic?q=dialogical#dialogic__4[last accessed 6th September 2016].
Anon (2016) Ephemeral. Oxford Dictionaries [online] Available from: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/ephemeral [last accessed 6th September 2016].
Bate, D. (2010) The memory of photography. Photographies. 3 (2) 243-257. Available from:http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17540763.2010.499609?needAccess=true [last accessed 5th September 2016].
Benjamin, W. (1973) Illuminations. London: Fontana.
Campany, D. (2016) The Angel of History in the Age of the Internet. Available from: http://davidcampany.com/the-angel-of-history-in-the-age-of-the-internet/ [last accessed 5th September 2016].
Cherry, D (2014) After lives of monuments. New York, USA: Routledge.
Douglas, S. (2010) Interviewed by A. Alberro. An interview with Stan Douglas. 25th November. Stan Douglas Abbott and Cordova 1971. Available from: http://arsenalpulp.com/extras/DouglasDraft3.pdf [last accessed 6th September 2016].
Harrison, R. (2016) What is heritage? The Open University. Available from: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/heritage/what-heritage/content-section-3.1 [last accessed 5th September 2016].
Harrison, R. (2016) Heritage as popular culture. The Open University. Available from: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/heritage/what-heritage/content-section-3.2 [last accessed 5th September 2016].
Harrison, R. (2016) Heritage and Tourism. The Open University. Available from: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/heritage/what-heritage/content-section-3.3 [last accessed 5th September 2016].
Hughes, G. and Hildenbrand, K. (2008) Images of war and war of images. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Kattago, S. (2012) Memory and Representation in Contemporary Europe: The Persistence of the Past. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing ltd.
Kuhn, A. (2002) Family secrets. Kings Lynn: Verso.
Moerman, T. (2012) The Magic Mirror Reflections in Photography as Memory. [online] BA (Hons) dissertation. University of Glasgow. Available from:https://www.academia.edu/5125449/The_Magic_Mirror_Reflections_on_Photography_as_Memory. [last accessed 5th September 2016].
Sandoz, D. (2003) Theories of Media, Keywords, Glossary, Simulacrum, Simulation (1). Chicago: The University of Chicago. Available from:http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/simulationsimulacrum.htm. [last accessed 5th September 2016].
Sontag, S. (2003) Regarding the pain of others. St Ives: Penguin.
Figgis, M. (dir.) (2001) The Battle of Orgreave (2001). [Television]. Archangel Media. Channel 4. [user-generated content, online] Creat. Jonny Jones. 19/08/2013. 63 mins, 15 secs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ncrWxnxLjg [last accessed 5th September 2016]
Ward, P. (2005) Documentary: The margins of reality. London: Wallflower.
Wells, L. (2004) Photography: a critical introduction. 3rd Edition. Glasgow: Routledge.
Wells, L. (2010) Photography: a critical introduction. 4th Edition. Glasgow: Routledge.
Wilson, A. (2012) The Battle of Orgreave Archive (An Injury to One is an Injury to All) 2001. London: Tate Available from:http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/deller-the-battle-of-orgreave-archive-an-injury-to-one-is-an-injury-to-all-t12185/text-summary [last accessed 5th September 2016].
Zwirner, D. (2008) Stan Douglas: Humour, Irony and the Law. [online press release]. Available from: http://www.davidzwirner.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/SD_DZ-show-2008.pdf[last accessed 7th September 2016].
Bibliography
(Anon) (2016) In pictures: A look back at the Battle of Orgreave in 1984. The Telegraph. (n.d.) Available from:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/uknews/10607957/In-pictures-A-look-back-at-the-Battle-of-Orgreave-in-1984.html?frame=2807646 [last accessed 5th September 2016].
Coser, L. and Halbwachs, M. (1992) On Collective Memory. Chicago, USA: University of Chicago Press.
Dacey, S. (2010) The Gastown Riots as Public Art. The Tyee, 17th February 2010. Available from:http://thetyee.ca/ArtsAndCulture/2010/02/17/GastownRiot/ [last accessed 6th September 2016].
Deller, J. (n.d.) The Battle of Orgreave, 2001. [online] Available from:http://www.jeremydeller.org/TheBattleOfOrgreave/TheBattleOfOrgreave_Video.php [last accessed 6th September 2016].
Douglas, S. (n.d.) Abbott and Cordova 7th August 1971. [online] Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press. http://arsenalpulp.com/extras/DouglasDraft3.pdf[last accessed 6th September 2016].
Elkin, J., Ortega, M. and Williams, H. (n.d.) Referencing Handbook Harvard. 2nd Edition. Lincoln: University of Lincoln.
Hewett, R. and Barber, S. (2013) AudioVisual Citation: BUFVC Guidelines for referencing moving image and sound. [online] London: Available from:
http://bufvc.ac.uk/projects-research/avcitation [last accessed 6th September 2016].
http://bufvc.ac.uk/projects-research/avcitation [last accessed 6th September 2016].
Hoskins, A. (2010) The Diffusion of Media/ Memory: the new complexity. Warwick. University of Warwick. Available from:http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/warwickbooks/complexity/andrew_hoskins/ [last accessed 5th September 2016].
McPhee, D. (2009) The Battle of Orgreave: police v the miners. The Guardian, 24th February 2009. Available from:http://www.theguardian.com/uk/gallery/2009/feb/23/don-mcphee-miner-strike-photography [last accessed 6th September 2016].
Modrak, R. and Anthes, B. (2011) Reframing Photography: Theory and Practice. Abingdon: Routledge.
OCA (n.d.) Harvard Referencing System. Barnsley: OCA
Shore, T. (2010) The Battle of Orgreave 25 years on: Memory, counter memory, re-enactment and translation. Available from: https://thomasmaxwellshore.wordpress.com/the-battle-of-orgreave-25-years-on-memory-counter-memory-re-enactment-and-translation/ [last accessed 5th September 2016].
UCA (2015) Harvard Referencing Guide. Available from: http://community.ucreative.ac.uk/article/42936/PDF---Downloadable-Guide---Harvard-Referencing [last accessed 6th September 2016].
Illustrations do not appear on blog due to copyright. Please click on above links to see the images.
List of Illustrations
Douglas, S. (2008) Abbott and Cordova 1971. [Photograph]. Georgia Street, Vancouver, Canada.
Deller, J. (2001) Police officers pursuing miners through the village: The Battle of Orgreave. [Photograph]. [online]. Available from:http://www.jeremydeller.org/TheBattleOfOrgreave/TheBattleOfOrgreave_Video.php [last accessed 6th September 2016].
[1] Collective memory is “the memory of a group of people passed from one generation to the next” (Anon, 2016)
[2] A Google search for “re-enactment photography” lists a variety of photo-help sites such as digital camera world, digital photography school and travel national geographic which concentrate on taking portrait and action shots of re-enactors in a landscape which may have seen the original action occur. Readers are taken through camera set up to post processing, and encouraged to approach organisers to provide photographs for next year’s advertisements or send images to re-enactors themselves.
[3] “Allegory – a story or picture which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one” (Anon, 2016)
[4] Straight photography – emphasis upon direct documentary typical of the Modern period of American photography (Wells, 2010, 351b)
[6] Ephemeral Monument - transitionary use of the space where the battle originally occurred and then returned back to a field once more “Lasting for a very short time” (Anon, 2016)
"A well-chosen subject Nicola, which supports your recent assignment work. It does need a thorough read through for referencing and punctuation before assessment." (Bloomfield, 2015)
I was pleased with this comment. I was inspired by Assignment 3's further reading and came across a current article which fitted in well with it, which also developed my interest around memory. At times it felt I was studying sociology rather than photography and so having 2 artists to link the work back to kept me on track. I was keen to include Deller's work as I had previously been to All that is solid melts into air which I could relate to and I am old enough to remember the miner's strikes which happened not far from my location.
Points for development
· Extend title - expand on quote by David Campany by linking it to re-enactment photography and collective memory to give more information
· "Harvard referencing - for direct quotes the author and page number should be cited within the text rather than the publisher or title. Try printing on paper and in a different font for a final proofread before submitting."
· "cite your sources when making statements of fact"
· "lead with a question"
· "be rigorous in your reasoning"
I agree with the above comments and will re-write these points when revisiting this assignment.
· "Titles and dates are needed for Dellers work and Mike Figgis’ film". (I thought I had included them. I have tried to make this clearer)
· "If your bibliography is the same as your references, just include the references. If you've read much more widely around your subject than your references suggest, then a bibliography can be useful to include."
I think this is one of the areas where tutors have individual preferences. For a previous tutor, I had to include all the references in the bibliography. I have removed them which makes the list shorter. It is cost effective when printing! I also discovered some punctuation had changed since I last wrote an academic assignment such as indenting a quote more than 3 lines long.
Further reading
I pulled of the OCA referencing guide, the UCA referencing guide, was given a copy of the referencing guide for Lincoln University and downloaded the audio visual citation guide. I hope these will stand me in good stead.
Walter Benjamin's Illuminations - contains a short extract on the Angel of History. having read this book towards the end of the course, I can associate with some of his ideas and see why he is used to illustrate some ideas. The edition I bought had a biography at the beginning so I now understands where he fits along with Debord and flaneurs.
Having read an article written by David Campany which related to re-enactment photography, memory and identity, it seemed fitting to expand on post work from Assignment 3 and broaden and deepen my understanding of the course exercises. He used a phrase towards the end of his essay hypothesising whether memory was the enemy of photography. I felt this was something I needed to explore; I started off by questioning him and I now agree with him having looked at the subject more closely.
I put together a plan and sent it off to my tutor for comment:
Possible critique idea assignment 4 landscape
“Photography may (even) be the enemy of memory” David Campany (2016)
In Campany’s essay entitled “The angel of history in the age of the internet” (2016) he explains that allegorical photography can be a medium for revisiting the past and reinterpreting it. Campany cites Stan Douglas’s Abbot and Cordova August 1971 as an example of a photographer who re-examined past events of a recent civil war through photography and presented it to the residents of the affected area. Campany concludes with the idea that photography’s well known critics such as Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard and Walter Benjamin have argued that “we need to be on guard against the simple equation of photography with memory […] just because a photograph is a document it does not follow that it’s meanings are clear […] meaning requires what Stan Douglas calls the “search for answers”.
Further research undertaken from my set of photographs on Clipstone WW1soldiers training trench and the centenary reconstruction for Assignment 3 led me to question how re-staging events alters collective memory (the memory of a group of people passed from one generation to the next -
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/collective-memory). I will be reviewing the evidence to support and challenge the quote that “Photography may (even) be the enemy of memory” through the study of contemporary historical re-enactment photography of Stan Douglas’s Abbot and Cordova (1971), Jeremy Deller’s Battle of Orgreave and Richard Barnes’s Civil War.
Arguments supporting the idea that photography may (even) be the enemy of memory
Stirs up old wounds
Takes a team of people and Hollywood to pull off the reality ? fantasy? How much is true
Undermines the authoritative records from the time?
Walter Benjamin – memory as a medium – re-enactment cannot be the same as the original
Storage – le Goff
Michael Focault -artificial memories
Freud – screen memories are created memories like fairytales – so watching the reenactment may change your original memories
Bathes – punctum
Susan Sontag “Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as collective memory--part of the same family of spurious notions as collective guilt. But there is collective instruction....What is called collective memory is not a remembering but a stipulating: that this is important, and this is the story about how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds.”
Arguments against the idea that photography may (even) be the enemy of memory
Search for answers – uncovers the truth, collective data and memory banks put together
Photography together with supporting arts interviews, editorials, essays can give the public more information to rediscover and ask questions
Documented truth challenged (media may have been ordered to show a different side to the truth) History rewritten through apology and challenge
Late photography – more deliberate, photos taken after the event, documentary style, truth?
Critical engagement is more than simulacrum (deeper than Baudrillard’s concept)
Changing collective memories by training and re-enforcing the other side – e.g miners to policemen
Collective memory strengthened by re=enactment (Green)
Bordieu
Conclusion – which side do I agree with?
“Photography may (even) be the enemy of memory” David Campany (2016)
In the essay entitled “The angel of history in the age of the internet” (Campany, 2016) explains that allegorical photography can be a medium for revisiting the past and reinterpreting it. He proposes the idea that photography’s well known critics such as Susan Sontag, Jean Baudrillard and Walter Benjamin have argued that “we need to be on guard against the simple equation of photography with memory […] just because a photograph is a document it does not follow that it’s meanings are clear […] meaning requires […] what Stan Douglas calls the “search for answers”. (Campany, 2016)
Using this as a framework to explore the subject of memory and photography based on my recent work in Clipstone’s reconstructed WW1 training trench for Assignment 3 led me to question how re-staging events alters collective memory[1]. I will explore the evidence to support and challenge the quote that “Photography may (even) be the enemy of memory” through the study of contemporary historical re-enactment photography.
Re-enactment photography[2] fits neatly into the United Kingdom’s concept of heritage (1980). Hewison described the “heritage industry” as a structure “largely imposed from above to capture a middle class nostalgia for the past as a golden age in the context of decline.” (OpenUniversity, 2016) , believing it prevented patrons from developing an interest in contemporary art and critical culture, and what mattered was our relationship with the past, not the past itself. Identity depends on the knowledge people have of their family history or social group and so people have to recognize their past in order to ascertain their future. Halbwach (1992) suggests that by viewing heritage through nostalgia, the past becomes Utopia rather than challenging the current problems although nostalgia “reinforces national identity when confidence is weakened or threatened.” (OpenUniversity, 2016)
Marxist critic Raphael Samuel (Theatres of War 1994) indicated that heritage’s origins support Conservative political interests. However, heritage made the past “more democratic through emphasis on the lives of ordinary people.” (OpenUniversity, 2016) The Open University advocate that through the transformative power of history and heritage’s role in providing diversity, heritage becomes a social process which involves communities wishing to preserve their heritage. Urry (1990) developed Foucault’s “gaze” into the “tourist gaze” proposing that “heritage should be co-created by its consumers,” (OpenUniversity, 2016) believing that photography and media had a part to play in updating local heritage. Photographing re-enactment alone does not meet the requirement for social change because most re-enactment groups have no political or social context, therefore contemporary artists such as Jeremy Deller and Stan Douglas use allegory[3] to transport the observer through Campany’s (2016) “time tunnel”, in order to re-examine the past, come to terms with it (if necessary) and move forwards, thus using re-enactment as a catalyst to change.
Individual and collective memory are inter-related because all personal memories contain “a network of meanings that bring together personal with familial, the cultural, the economic, the social and the historical.” (Kuhn, 2002, p. 4) In obtaining oral histories and reviewing evidence, researchers find stories are revised, or have undergone “secondary revision” (Kuhn, 2002, p. 5) . Sontag disputes this; “Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as collective memory-part of the same family of spurious notions as collective guilt. But there is collective instruction…What is called collective memory is not a remembering but a stipulating: that this is important, and this is the story about how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds.” (Sontag, 2003, p. 76) Sontag believes that memory and guilt are individual and die with each person whereas collective instruction is acknowledging responsibility for past actions, through historical knowledge, discourse and critical review. It is crucial not to let ideology stand in the way of education because the photograph/event becomes myth. (Kattago, 2012, p. 23)
With re-enactment, rules designed by the organizer for actors to follow, create collective memories for the group in the present, but cultural histories will be different providing only individual memories of the past. Unity is achieved through symbolism – re-creating badges, wearing uniforms, chanting and training to tell “the story of how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds.” (Sontag, 2003, p. 76)
How would the viewer know whether Douglas’s straight photography[4], or Deller’s documentary photography is re-enactment? Allegorical work provides clues which can be read into the photograph. In Douglas’s “Abbot and Cordova 1971” the re-enactment portrayed the clash between police and citizens in the Gastown Riots. (Campany, 2016) cites Zwirner “Douglas stages a scene […] which exploded mounting tensions between local hippies and law enforcement. Striving for historical accuracy, the work replicates local businesses, as well as music posters and newspapers from the time.” The chosen site was close to the original and reconstructed to look similar. Douglas controlled the stage by devising 9 sub scenes shot over three nights resulting in a composited photograph from 50 images. By using an elevated position, Douglas could separate the groups of people, positioned so the viewer questioned their roles. From oral histories and documented evidence, Douglas ascertained that middle and working class older men watched the event unfold from the sidelines, thus some characters were positioned as if watching a play. His work is displayed in the public sphere of an outdoor atrium, close to the original site, reinforcing the idea that this is site specific, representing the social and political struggles which happened to activate change.
The motivation for Deller’s dialogical[5] artwork “Battle of Orgreave” (2001) occurred because “Families were torn apart because of divided loyalties, the union movement was split on its willingness to support the National Union of Mineworkers, the print media especially contributed to the polarization of the arguments to the point where there appeared to be little space for a middle ground. So in all but name it became an ideological and industrial battle between the two sections of British society.” (Wilson, 2012) Deller engaged with ex-miners and their community spending eighteen months researching archives, collecting oral histories and working with Howard Giles (English Heritage) to stage a re-enactment using re-enactors and the local community close to the original coking plant, resulting in a documentary film (producer Mike Figgis) shown on television and an installation at the Tate Gallery.
Bate (Bate, September 2010) quotes le Goff (1974)and Bourdieu as theorizing that “photography revolutionalises memory – it multiplies and democratises it, gives it a precision and a truth never before attained in visual memory, and makes it possible to preserve the memory of time and chronical evolution,” explaining that family photographs act like a memorial or monument to the past following Bourdieu’s argument of “establishing the truth of social remembrance” closely. Could re-enactment photography could be considered monumental? “Winters describes museums, films and TV in a way which the past is viewed through public representations of memories as “theatres of memory”” (Deborah Cherry, 2014, p. 165) making Deller’s work an ephemeral[6] monument. Collective memory is therefore enshrined and memorialization recalls the past, through nostalgia and social change. Douglas would rather his work not be memorialized because Abbott and Cordova 1971 promotes conversation about the actual event rather than silence over a plaque or artist’s blurb.
Is photography a medium which records the truth as the camera intended? Contemporary re-enactment photography starts with research through archived documents and oral history. Although it is assumed photographs record truth, Joan Fontcuberta (Hildenbrand, 2008, p. 113) suggest that interpreting a document or picture is subjective, depending on the reader’s culture and knowledge of the world. The viewpoint of the photograph is predominantly that of the photographer. Known for his hyper-real work, Fontcuberta considers a good photographer lies. When examining photographic archives, the viewer must be aware of the social context in which photographs were taken (including political or authoritative issues of the time.) (Moerman, 2012, p. 8) suggests a constructed image is more truthful to experience reality than a documented one because secondary revision of the memory of the event is a language which speaks to the mind and emotion. Kuhn proposes that photographers “may “speak silence”, absence and contraindication in as much as, indeed more than, presence, truth or authenticity and that while in the production of memory photographs might often repress this knowledge but they can also be used as a means of questioning identities and memories and of generating new ones.” (Kuhn, 2002, p. 155)
Re-enactment photographs have the ability to re-write history; they are made in the “now” and can convert the present to the past through re-imagining. Both Douglas and Deller’s work covered an event which was pivotal in cultural history. For Deller, research revealed the impression that media coverage from 1984 was in favour of the Government. Within the documentary, Tony Benn MP emphasized “BBC journalists were ordered to transpose the order in such a way as to give the opposite impression.” (Youtube, n.d.) (Ward, 2005, p. 65) supports this view, quoting Benn, “They didn’t make a mistake…whoever gave the orders actually destroyed the truth of what they reported.” An apology (issued in 1991 by the BBC) for inadvertently reversing the film footage, contained within the documentary and shown alongside the original footage provided the context for redressing the balance of history. Douglas’s reflective photograph, whilst not displaying the outcome, provides a supporting paratext informing people that the riot successfully changed the city regulations. Walter Benjamin’s Angel of History called for a time which could redeem the past by propelling it into the present; enabling people to critically re-examine the past.
Jean Baudrillard’s concept of simulation in media as a representation of real demonstrates real becomes commonplace to reality. The image of simulation is simulacrum which has different feelings and emotions to reality. Simulation aims to mislead without having all the qualities of simulacrum. Simulation happens in real life and the experience is used against the participants so that they cannot tell the falseness of the imitation. (Sandoz, 2003) Deller’s mining community volunteers were involved in the original event, and in his simulation, the action stirred up real feeling and emotions, leading to chaos and making it difficult to identify the original photographs from the simulation.
So, is “Photography the enemy of memory” as David Campany (2016) suggests? Supporting this question is the argument of whether collective memory exists, or whether, as Sontag suggests, all memory is individual. Re-enactment can never be the same as the original because people come from different cultures and critical discourse must examine from a different perspective. The outcome is an image (or set of images) that only a few truly understand, offering different viewpoints of the event. However, in the search for answers, the truth may have been uncovered, through oral history and photography but is only ever as accurate as the recorder. Although initially I questioned the quote, having considered the evidence, I would support Campany’s hypothesis that photography is the enemy of memory and in order to understand an event, photographs should be questioned further; and if necessary scrutinized using a “time tunnel” to revisit the past in order to critically move forward. Perhaps we need more than just photographs themselves.
Word count including references 2020 words
Word count excluding references 1561 words
Word count for footnotes 164 words
References
Bate, D. (September 2010). The memory of photography. Photographies Volume 3, 243-257.
Campany, D. (2016). http://davidcampany.com/the-angel-of-history-in-the-age-of-the-internet/. last accessed March 2016
Cherry, D (2014). After lives of monuments. New York: Routledge. p165
Hughes, G, Hildenbrand, K (2008) Images of war and war of images, Cambridge Scholars Publishing p113
Kattago, S. (2012). Memory and Representation in Contemporary Europe: The Persistence of the Past. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing ltd. p23
Kuhn, A. (2002). Family secrets. Kings Lynn: Verso. p4, p155
Moerman, T. (2012). The Magic Mirror Reflections in Photography as Memory. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/5125449/The_Magic_Mirror_Reflections_on_Photography_as_Memory. p8 last accessed March 2016
Open University. (2016, January). hhttp://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/heritage/what-heritage/content-section-3.1. last accessed March 2016
Sandoz, D. (2003). The University of Chicago, Theories of Media,Keywords, Glossary, Simulacrum, Simulation. Retrieved from http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/simulationsimulacrum.htm. last accessed March 2016
Sontag, S. (2003). Regarding the pain of others. St Ives, UK: Penguin. p76
Ward, P. (2005). Documentary: The margins of reality. London: Wallflower. p65
Wells, L. (2010). Photography a critical introduction. Glasgow: Routledge. p351
Wilson, A. (2012, October). http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/deller-the-battle-of-orgreave-archive-an-injury-to-one-is-an-injury-to-all-t12185/text-summary. last accessed March 2016
Youtube. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ncrWxnxLjg. last accessed March 2016
Bibliography
Bate, D. (September 2010). The memory of photography. Photographies Volume 3, 243-257.
Campany, D. (2016). http://davidcampany.com/the-angel-of-history-in-the-age-of-the-internet/. last accessed March 2016
Cherry, D. (2014). After lives of monuments. New York: Routledge.
Hughes, G , Hildenbrand, K (2008) Images of war and war of images, Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Kattago, S. (2012). Memory and Representation in Contemporary Europe: The Persistence of the Past. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing ltd.
Kuhn, A. (2002). Family secrets. Kings Lynn: Verso.
Moerman, T. (2012). The Magic Mirror Reflections in Photography as Memory. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/5125449/The_Magic_Mirror_Reflections_on_Photography_as_Memory. p8 last accessed March 2016
Open University. (2016, January). hhttp://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/heritage/what-heritage/content-section-3.1. last accessed March 2016
Sandoz, D. (2003). The University of Chicago, Theories of Media,Keywords, Glossary, Simulacrum, Simulation. Retrieved from http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/simulationsimulacrum.htm. last accessed March 2016
Sontag, S. (2003). Regarding the pain of others. St Ives, UK: Penguin.
Ward, P. (2005). Documentary: The margins of reality. London: Wallflower.
Wells, L. (2010). Photography a critical introduction. Glasgow: Routledge.
Wilson, A. (2012, October). http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/deller-the-battle-of-orgreave-archive-an-injury-to-one-is-an-injury-to-all-t12185/text-summary. last accessed March 2016
Youtube. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ncrWxnxLjg. last accessed March 2016
Coser, L (1992) Maurice Halbwachs On Collective Memory, University of Chicago Press
The following websites were last accessed March 2016:
http://arsenalpulp.com/extras/DouglasDraft3.pdf
http://www.jeremydeller.org/TheBattleOfOrgreave/TheBattleOfOrgreave_Video.php
[1] Collective memory is “the memory of a group of people passed from one generation to the next” (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/collective-memory)
[2] A Google search for “re-enactment photography” lists a variety of photo-help sites such as digital camera world, digital photography school and travel national geographic which concentrate on taking portrait and action shots of re-enactors in a landscape which may have seen the original action occur. Readers are taken through camera set up to post processing, and encouraged to approach organisers to provide photographs for next year’s advertisements or send images to re-enactors themselves.
[3] “Allegory – a story or picture which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one” - http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/allegory
[4] Straight photography – emphasis upon direct documentary typical of the Modern period of American photography (Wells, 2010)
[5] Dialogical means dialogue (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/dialogic?q=dialogical#dialogic__4)
[6] Ephemeral Monument - transitionary use of the space where the battle originally occurred and then returned back to a field once more “Lasting for a very short time” http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/ephemeral
Learning point - reference email correctly. No dates on dropbox. Rectified for assignment 5.
I have attached an idea for my critical review following your feedback from
assignment 3. Please let me know if it needs to be simpler. I was interested in
the further reading and how it fits into the local landscape. ....
N.Hampshire (2016) Assignment 4 [via dropbox] Sent to R.Bloomfield, March.
N.Hampshire (2016) Assignment 4 [via dropbox] Sent to R.Bloomfield, March.
I like your idea to examine photography as memory within the context of your
own recent work framed by Campany's essay. I would make clear in your opening
paragraph what your argument is going to be and then outline your territory
with reference to sources before making a tentative conclusion. This is a vast
field of history, photography and representation so keep it focussed on one or
two themes such as re enactment. Sontag rather contradicts your argument so
its a brave move to include her, make sure you respond to her comment on
collective memory. I wouldn't stray too far into Barthes punctum which doesn't
seem relevant here, although Campany's idea of a certain 'time tunnel' moment
in which the past can be reevaluated and understood is interesting.
Bloomfield, R. (2016) Assignment 4 [via dropbox] Sent to N. Hampshire, March.own recent work framed by Campany's essay. I would make clear in your opening
paragraph what your argument is going to be and then outline your territory
with reference to sources before making a tentative conclusion. This is a vast
field of history, photography and representation so keep it focussed on one or
two themes such as re enactment. Sontag rather contradicts your argument so
its a brave move to include her, make sure you respond to her comment on
collective memory. I wouldn't stray too far into Barthes punctum which doesn't
seem relevant here, although Campany's idea of a certain 'time tunnel' moment
in which the past can be reevaluated and understood is interesting.
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