PRACTICES OF MEMORY AND MEMORY DISPLAY
- Millie Stephens
- May 9, 2021
- 2 min read
Technologies of Memory: Practices of Remembering in Analogue and Digital Photography
Dr Emily Keightley and Professor Michael Pickering (Forthcoming), New Media and Society (2014) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1461444814532062
Key Points:
- Move from analogue to digital photography: "how this has affected the meanings of personal photographs and the practices of remembering associated with them"
- 4 Key categories of photographic practices: photo-taking, photo-storing, photo-viewing and photo-sharing.
- Technology is inevitably the driving force of social and cultural change
- William Mitchell believes that digital photography causes "manipulation and open-endedness"- calls into question the relationship of the photograph and the object or scene it represents
- questions digital photographies quality of being 'true-evidence'
- extended even further through editing softwares (digital enhancements)
- Photo-taking:
- digital cameras= more selective with the images you keep (more informal)
- digital cameras= don't have to get a different picture every time
- Photo-storing:
- analogue photography= give us special/precious images (age of the photograph)
- digital photos= more immediate and disposable (memory cards)
- significant photos are usually printed
- Photo-viewing:
- "personal photographs act as a conveyance in this sense is changing"
- becoming less private (with the increase of social media?)
- photobook
- Photo-sharing:
- family albums= intimate, focused gatherings, localised interactions
- sites= emphasis on display (doesn't have to be accompanied by dialogue or annotation)
- control- what is remembered via photo-images (who is remembered- when shared)
Robertson, M.A. 2017. Networks of Memory: Vernacular Photography, (New) Media, and Meaning Making. Doctor of Philosophy thesis, Simon Fraser University.
Key Points:
- "the photographs we surround ourselves with remind us of the connections to family, friends, special events, and everyday occasions that we want to remember"
- Geoffrey Batchen: the home and museum are places "where we might expect (and not expect) to find vernacular photographs"
- having relationships with certain photographs (never simple)
- gallery exhibitions vs online exhibitions= different opportunities of engagement with vernacular photographs (user constraint)
Comments