life as prosthetic memory

I think I have mentioned before that I am behind in my reading for some of my classes. I've caught up for my "Race and Nation in Twentieth Century US Cinema" class, which is very good news. On the other hand, I have yet to receive from the on-campus bookstore my textbooks for my "Sexuality in the Cinema" class. But that is neither here nor there.

Today I started reading Alison Landsberg's Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture for the US Cinema course. Very interesting. Landsberg defines "prosthetic memory"--and I'm paraphrasing here--as the site where an individual comes face-to-face with an historical narrative that the individual did not directly experience or live through. These historical narratives can be from another time or even ones that mainly just affected people of another race, class, gender, nationality, etc. Anyway, at this moment of confrontation, the person does not just understand the moment's significance, she also absorbs it as a sort of past experience that occupies for her as equal a space in her memory as any event in her archive of actual personal experiences. This sort of memory is important not just because it allows for the historical narrative or event to shape the individual's outlook and "subjectivity," it also allows for empathy.

Landsberg argues that films and experiential museums are the sites where such memory-making moments occur. This is why we're reading it for the class; to see how films can physically and emotionally move audiences to believe they are experiencing an historical moment that they themselves never actually experienced. OK. An example: the Holocaust. There are numerous films about this important event in history, and certainly not all the people who saw Schindler's List (1993) or Life is Beautiful (1997) were Jewish. If these films are filed in a viewer's memory regardless of her race, ethnicity, religion, age, gender, and so on then she may later recall the events depicted in these films, for instance, and confuse them as real events she lived through or experienced. The realism of the cinematic medium can blur the line between what is real and what is imagined, what is "authentic" and what is "inauthentic." Of course, I don't mean that Landsberg actually thinks someone can feel themselves a Holocaust victim or survivor based on seeing one film; what I mean to say is that as viewers we may imagine a past historical event as how we remember seeing it enacted in a film. And because of this, we are more likely to empathize with those who actually experienced it. Not to mention, we're also likely to identify with people who had a similar experience watching the film; we recognize we're similar because we have new "prosthetic memories."

The book is fascinating, and it got me thinking a lot since Landsberg started to deconstruct what she meant by "prosthetic memories" through using modern sci-fi epics Blade Runner (1982) and Total Recall (1990). To start there simply because sci-fi as a genre allows for an imagined future where anything is possible and where memory plays a different role in forming people's identities--as is the case in these two films--wasn't enough of a sell for me. I tried to think of other genres and films where "prosthetic memories" play a central role. And I've thought of three.

The most obvious one being Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). Without going into too much detail about the film because I assume you've seen it, recall how Jim Carrey is racing against the clock to salvage memories before they are taken away from him. To hold onto Kate Winslet, the crazy girlfriend he would rather not forget after all, he decides to take her to memories where she did not appear. In this way, she experiences his boyhood memories of being picked on, watching from under the table an attractive friend of his mother's, and bathing in the kitchen sink. Not only can this change his memory of these past events in his life (now boyhood isn't so lonely), she has also taken on memories of times when she didn't know him and these memories of his have become hers too, informing her perspective on him, her life, and love.

The next example I thought of was Before Sunset (2004). The one-time lovers Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reflect during this chance meeting in Paris on their affair through Vienna nine years before, as chronicled in Before Sunrise (1995). They also explicitly discuss how this chance meeting can change their memory of the past. For instance, as Delpy's Celine points out, he can no longer go on thinking his return to Vienna was an awful experience. After all, it was fodder for his first bestselling novel. Let's face it: if they had met, perhaps his book would have a different ending. His not knowing what kept her led him to leave the book open-ended because he didn't even want to imagine what an ending to their romance would be like.

But, knowing her reason for not turning up to their planned reunion changes his memory of the event. For it's now likely that he will forever connect her not showing up in Vienna to their chance meeting in Paris where they were able to discuss all sorts of things.

More to the point, the realism and the unique narrative structure (just fly-on-the-wall views of a long, intimate conversation between two strangers-turned-lovers in Sunrise and one between two past lovers in Sunset) allow the viewer to develop a "prosthetic memory" of their rendezvous. More specifically, Before Sunset invites the audience to remember the prequel through splicing scenes from Sunrise into the moments where Hawke's Jesse recognizes Celine. Their conversation that stretches out along the winding backstreets of Paris and along the Seine returns again and again to the topic of their meeting and falling in love. I think that through their words it is possible to follow their love story even if the viewer has never seen Before Sunrise. Since I saw Sunrise before Sunset, every time I watch Sunset, as they talk about the night in Vienna, I am reminded of the actual events that took place in Sunrise. The acting and writing are so superb in each that the film can and does lead one to believe they are real people. This is an effect of "prosthetic memory," I think; Jesse and Celine are real lovers. I remember them meeting in Vienna and later in Paris.

My last example is Zelig (1983). I just saw it last night for the first time. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. It satirizes society through examining in the best mockumentary fashion a human chameleon (Woody Allen as Leonard Zelig). Not only is he present for many historical moments in the 1920s and 30s, hobnobbing with the rich and famous and the regular Joes, he also takes on their physical and emotional characteristics while he is with them. He is able to fool people into thinking he is Native American, for example, because he looks and he acts like he is. Talk about "authenticity"! Talk about extreme empathy! (It's not exactly sympathy because none of his identities is permanent and thus his identities can be thought of as transient, always changing. He has no permanent self from which he can be sympathetic to one group or another all the time as the groups he assumes may be in conflict with each other.)

Then a love interest enters the story in the form of psychiatrist Eudora Fletcher (Mia Farrow). She attempts to cure him of this psychological disorder, concerned he is being taken advantage of by the media. She also wants him to develop a personality of his own.

In any case, a fascination with this period of American history had to have been one of the contributing factors for Allen's making this film. Casting himself in the role of Zelig allows him to play around with history, to imagine how his infamously neurotic self would interact with the times. Of course the story is completely fictional; it is not as if he has transferred any real story or real experience of his to this time. But, fundamentally, the film shows what it is like to insert yourself into all the historical events you wished you saw, strung together by a seemingly ridiculous but ultimately insightful narrative. In other words, the film represents a reclamation of collective history and memory and illuminates how the collective memory of history is subjective and "prosthetic."

eavesdropping

I saw a commercial yesterday for this sort of portable amplifying device. I don't know technically what it is or how it works, but the product is called Listen Up. When they first introduced its purpose (your reason for buying it), a senior-age couple was lying in bed together at night. She wanted him to lower the volume of the TV so she could go to bed, and he complained he wouldn't be able to hear it if he did that. The solution? Listen Up because he can plug into the device with headphones/earphones so only he would hear it (loudly). What I still don't understand is why they did not mention that she would still be able to hear it on some level. It's not as if it would work if he put the TV on mute. She would hear it, too. Is there that much of a difference, anyway?

In order to fully convince people that they should buy this thing, the makers advertised other venues where it's useful, such as on nature walks (you can better hear the birds chirping!) or at sporting events (you can hear what the players are saying to each other--if you're close enough already, right?).

I don't take issue with these, but I do take issue with their other suggestion: listening in on other people's conversations. They even demonstrated two examples! A guy was listening in on two women standing on the other side of the gym. He was grinning as they complimented his physique. And a woman picking up her mail at the end of her driveway listened as neighbors passed her because they were talking about her, the obvious "new nice neighbor." She grinned, too, happy to hear that they like her after all.

OK. So if you didn't buy the thing for nature walks or classical concerts, if you had the ulterior motive of eavesdropping, invading other people's privacy, their private space even, then this commercial not only acknowledges that you may choose to purchase it for this Big Brother purpose, it fucking suggests and condones it! In other words, I was shocked that it outright acknowledged why you're probably more likely to use the little electronic device.

In any case, what this means is that in addition to governmental intrusions of privacy, privacy is becoming a thing of the past on even more local levels between individuals and/or strangers. I'm surprised they didn't show someone listening in on his Middle Eastern (particularly Muslim) neighbors to find out if they're with Al-Qaeda or something.

What is the world coming to?

blankest year

Whenever I wear my new iPod shuffle--whether it is on trips to town to buy groceries or on jaunts from one end of campus to the other--I cannot help thinking I sold out. On so many levels. Some fuckin' socialist I am.

First, I had always criticized people who are equally glued to their portable music machines as they are to their mobile phones. (In the UK, there must be the quickest typists around; everyone is always texting away, and the sound annoys me like you would not believe. But I'm digressing.) It is very desensitizing and dehumanizing this Digital age we are living in. Before, I would comment that I am one of the few people on my university campus back home that could be seen walking to and from class without speaker buds in my ears, a cell glued to my ear, or even in some cases without a body walking in tandem with me. I went it alone. People are much more unapproachable when they're investing so much of their present, aural attention in something that keeps them from seeing what is round them.

Second, being on the other side of it now (owning and using the mp3 player in much the same way most do), I recognize I was right. I can't say whether or not it has made me feel even lonelier because I have always been lonely. But I think that if I continue to use it in these ways, it will only further hinder my socialization, which is already delayed as I am almost 21 years old. It doesn't help either that I use the device to block out the awkward stares I feel are being lasered in my direction as I walk to class. I am paranoid and ultra-sensitive. We've been through this before.

I will say that this brooch of just another branded commodity is in fact useful for when I want to shut out noisy neighbors at night. I lie awake in my bed, staring up at the ceiling, with my pink headphones (they're more comfortable than the ear buds that do not fit), lip-synching anthems. Like I would ever do that on my way to class.