Title of Investigation Remembering with an image: representing the visual in autobiographical memory.   Aims of Investigation Within this project I aim to use visual means to investigate the mechanisms by which our visual perceptions are stored and can be retrieved as internally experienced memory images.  It is my intention to produce work in a sculptural form which will operate as a visual metaphor for the processes taking place.   The ability to remember past experiences and to learn from them enables us to make sense of the world as we experience it:   “Memory is the great organizer of consciousness.  It simplifies and composes our perceptions into units of personal knowledge” (Langer, S. “Feeling and Form” 1979, p.262/3)   Without memory we would have no means of successfully engaging with what is happening to us and we would have no awareness of the “I” that is having the experience (see Sartre, J.P. “Being and Nothingness”, 1943/1993).  The visual, as one element of our sensory experiences, forms only one part of our knowledge and, therefore, only one part of our memory alongside propositional forms such as words.  However there are powerful arguments to suggest that it is our ability to think visually:   “The words or the language as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanisms of thought.  The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be ‘voluntarily’ reproduced and combined” (Einstein, A. cited in Hademan, J. “The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field” 1945)   and to remember visually:   “The act of vividly recalling a patch of the past is something I have been performing with the utmost zest all my life” (Nabokov, V. “Speak Memory”, p.75, 1951/1989)   which gives us a strong component of our selves.  Each of us has a subjective and personal experience of the world we inhabit but there are areas of commonality in terms of shared history and in relation to the way in which the mechanisms of our minds operate.  The study of these mechanisms has produced a rich body of exploration within fields such as Philosophy, Psychology (including criminal investigation, advertising, marketing, political persuasion) andPsychoanalysis.  I will refer to a selection of this material in order to establish a theoretical basis for this project but will seek to achieve a balance with visual practice which will hopefully yield a genuine understanding.   The close relationship between the functioning of memory and that of imagination (see Warnock, M “Memory”, 1987) persuades me that an arts based approach has much to offer and this echoes the sentiments of Arthur Efland when he says:   “It is only in the arts where the processes and products of the imagination are encountered and explored in full consciousness” (Efland, A. “Art and Cognition” p. 133, 2002)   Indeed there has been much work completed already in the fields of visual art, film and literature to which I will make selected reference.  The work cited in this respect will be drawn from practitioners who have articulated an interest in the philosophical and psychological implications of the interplay between past and present as operations of perception and memory.   The practical work will consist of three case studies.  The first two will be installations of image fragments which explore the visual associations made in the mind when undertaking short/medium term and long term tasks; a distinction will also be made between different motivations/stimulus for retrieving visual memories.  The third case study will explore the language of film focusing specifically on examples where an effort has been made to establish a visual equivalence to the process of moving from external perception to internal remembrance of things past.                                 Images of Memory Model No.1       Research Questions   These are followed in each case by an outline introduction to the issues involved and also by an indicative selection of reference material.   1.      How Do Current Perception and Visual Memory Interact?   Virginia Woolf writing in 1928 said:   “Memory is a seamstress, and a capricious one at that. Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither.  We know not what comes next, or what follows after.  Thus the most ordinary movement in the world, such as sitting down at a table and pulling the inkstand towards one, may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments, now bright, now dim, hanging and bobbing and dipping and flaunting, like the underlinen of a family of fourteen on a line in a gale of wind” (Woolf, V. “Orlando: a biography” p.49, 1928/2000)   Whether it is a case of remembering what an ink stand is, on seeing one, or trying to call to mind the face of a friend, there is a coming together of what is being received via the visual sense and what is being accessed from the mind.  The notion of this process as multi-layered was one put forward by Henri Bergson (see “Matter and Memory”, 1911).  In Bergson’s model our awareness of matter was appropriated by the mind as perception, this then formed a plane against which existing memory came into contact at a specific time/location as the point of a up-turned cone might meet the flat surface of a table.                           Composite still image from the film “Last Year at Marienbad”, Dir. Resnais, A. France, 1962   Whether this process is a conscious and controlled one is the subject of much debate.  Sigmund Freud’s work in psychoanalysis (see Freud, S. “Introduction to Psychoanalysis” 1900/1997) indicates powerful control over areas of experience (and hence memory) exercised by our subconscious minds.  In other words, and to continue with Woolf’s analogy, we don’t necessarily have conscious control over which line connects which set of linen together!  His ideas, when put to work in the service of marketing and public relations by his nephew Edward Bernays in the United States, enjoyed remarkable success.  It led to the creation of desire for unnecessary products and perhaps demonstrates that emotional responses play a major role in storing and structuring memory (see “The Century of the Self” BBC TV production).  However there is an opposing philosophical position which has developed from an empirical tradition.  Here the thinking is that, following the reception of sensory information, the ordering and organization of our knowledge and our memories is a conscious act of will undertaken in a way which we are much more aware of.  Kant proposes that through our engagement with the world (matter) our sensibility gives us intuitions which our mind then organizes, through understanding, into concepts.  Without this process the world would appear utterly chaotic (see Kant, I. “The Critique of Pure Reason”, 1781).  There is an acknowledgement that the imagination is at work in forming the concepts but there is an emphasis on logic.   2.      Can I construct models which will represent visual memory on a metaphorical level?   Memory operates as a consequence of brain function therefore any study of memory needs to acknowledge work in neurology as an important basis for any investigation.  We now have detailed knowledge of the physical structure of the brain (see illustration 1) and know that memories are stored in the connections made between neuronal networks (synapses).  Indeed terms such as “engram” have been coined (see Schacter, “In Search of Memory”, 1996) to describe the new sets of connections established when we store a new memory or reinforced when we re-visit an existing one.  However this doesn’t necessarily breed an understanding of the ways in which we actually experience memory:   “Because the workings of memory are not apparent from the physical structure of the brain, explanations of memory must be based on things we do understand” (Parkin, A. “Memory and Amnesia” p.3, 1987)   In this area of my study I want to examine the specifically image based elements of this process and explore the potential for a visual articulation of what takes place.  Some of the terms employed by psychologists writing at a time when the science was relatively young already suggest a strong visual element in relation to how memory operates, for example William James:   “The more facts a fact is associated with in the mind, the better possession of it our memory retains.  Each of its associates becomes a hook to which it hangs, a means to fish it up by when sunk below the surface” (James, W. “Principles of Psychology” p.662, 1890)   Within the practical work I will seek to construct a metaphor for “seeing” in the mind in a way which clarifies the workings of memory by allowing the audience to see into the process at the same time as standing, quite literally outside it.   3.      What role does the image play in autobiographical memory?   Through the construction of visual pieces I will analyze the ways in which we experience images as an element of memory.  Work from the psychologist Daniel Schacter, amongst others, suggests that we have the capacity to automatically store what we see and hear as a result of a process called “implicit memory” (see Schacter, D. “In Search of Memory”, 1996).  Even at times where we aren’t really paying special attention this activity is under way.  The results enable us to recognize people we have met before, find our way home, buy the coffee we like and make a host of other decisions without which our lives would be impossible.  The role of the visual in this process has long been recognized as pivotal in the sense that it is one of the principal forms in which we can re-access what we know.   There are two main areas for exploration: ·        Deliberate recall. For example “seeing” in the mind might involve a deliberate act of recall in a criminal investigation where a witness is asked to describe “exactly what you saw”.  In this circumstance we all share the capacity to summon up an internal image and make it public in some form; maybe verbal or visual.  The efficiency with which we do this and the forces which shape the accuracy of our deliberate recall have been the subject of much debate (see Wells, G. & Loftus, E. “Eyewitness Testimony”, 1984) and our capacity for accuracy is far from complete.  Indeed it could be argued that:   “Memories are not carbon copies of the experiences that created them.  They are constructions at the time of recall, and the state of the brain at the time of recall can influence the way in which the withdrawn memory is remembered” (Le Doux, J. “The Emotional Brain”, 1996).   In other words what happens between a memory episode and when we recall it, as well as our state of mind at the time of recall, will be formative in the way we re-experience what we saw. ·        Spontaneous memory. There are some circumstances where a sensory prompt of some kind might cue an image based memory or a set of associations with pre-existing knowledge.  A well known example would be Marcel Proust’s encounter with a madeleine dipped in tea (see Proust, M. “Remembrance of Things Past”, 1954/1982) where a taste was the culprit for visual recollections, but there is equally strong evidence from such fields as advertising.  In this area, much of which provides visual material to would be purchasers of goods and services, it is important to prompt appropriate visual connections if a brand is to be successfully sold.  For this to happen it is necessary to install a range of imagery into the memory of consumers so that there are as many connections as possible to the product.  If those connections are positive then there is a greater chance of influencing a purchase decision (see Brown, B. “Graphic Memory”, 2000.  Also Heath, R. “How the Best Ads Work”, 2002)     Current Progress   I am currently working on:   ·        Preliminary 3D models in order to explore aesthetic and technical issues relating to both of the practical case studies. ·        Analysis of films in order to establish a classification system of the ways in which film makers have attempted to visualize the working memory ·        Collation and outline analysis of texts where the author has dealt with the interplay between memory and the present in order to isolate and clarify the extra dimension added by the visual as encountered in the examples of film and visual practice ·        Preparation of indicative bibliographies, references and a glossary for each area of the study.