Towardsculturalhypermnesia.Culturalmemoryintheageofdigitalheritage.

GregoryPaschalidis
[Published in M. Tsipopoulou (ed.) Digital Heritage in the New Knowledge Environment:
Shared spaces and open paths to cultural content, Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture, pp.
179181.]

Ourcurrentconcernswithpreservation,memoryandheritageseemstodatefromthe
1970s.Itwasaroundthattimethatthephenomenonreachedthedimensionsofamagnificent
obsession, enobling and uplifting for its many followers, yet intolerably antiquarian and
backwardlooking for its many critics. The latter attacked it for fostering an idealized and
sanitized version of the past (Lowenthal 1985: 340 ff), for suggesting that history is over
(Hewison1987:141)andturning everything into museumsandthemeparks.In thecontextof
the postmodernism debate raging then, heritage mania was taken as another instance of the
historicist bent of postmodern culture, exemplified also in phenomena like pastiche, nostalgia
andretrofascination.Allthesewereseenassymptomsoftheessentialdisappearanceofhistory
(see eg. Baudrillard 1994), of the effective eclipse of historical consciousness. Fredric Jameson
pointed out the perpetual present and multiple historical amnesias of postmodernism
(Jameson1991:170),castigatingthewayinwhichourentirecontemporarysocialsystemhas
littlebylittlebegunto loseitscapacity toretain itsownpast;aprocessherelatesdirectlyto
modern media, which he describes as the very agents and mechanisms for our historical
amnesia (Jameson 1998: 1920). Since then, one of the staples of cultural criticism has been
theculturalandhistoricalamnesiapurportedlyinducedbymodernmediaandcommunication
technology.
A few years later, when the Internet, personal computers and other digital media had
become common, Andreas Huyssen diagnosed modern culture as being terminally ill with
amnesia,anddeclaredthestruggleagainsthightechamnesiaasastruggleformemory,for
history(Huyssen1995:1, 5). Acknowledgingtheparadoxofan erathatseemedtocombinea
memoryboomwithanatrophyofhistoricalconsciousnessinpublicculture,Huyssenchooses
to think amnesia and memory together rather than simply oppose them. He feels that the
current mnemonic fever is actually caused by the virus of amnesia itself, which at times
threatenstoconsumememoryitself(Huyssen1995:7)andputsforwardthehypothesisthat
our obsessions with memory function as a reaction formation against the accelerating

technical processes that are transforming our Lebenswelt (lifeworld) in quite distinct ways
(Huyssen 1995: 7). The memory boom, in other words, is a potentially healthy sign of
contestation...of the informational hyperspace and an expression of the basic human need to
liveinextendedstructuresoftemporality(Huyssen1995:9).
Huyssens insistence to think the ever expanding culture of memory as part and
reaction tothe cultureofamnesiacontinues inhislater writingsas well. Althoughnoticeably
morescepticalofthe currentpracticeto couch theamnesiareproachina critiqueofpresicely
thosemedia,liketelevisionandtheInternet,thatmakeevermorememoryavailabletousday
byday,Huyssenendsuprepeatinghisfearsaboutthecybervirusofamnesia,aswellashis
interpretationofthememoryfeveritcausesasanexpressionofthegrowingneedforspatial
andtemporalanchoringinaworldofincreasingflux(Huyssen2003:17,27)

In parallel with the recent canonization of amnesia as a critical term, there has been an

amnesiaepidemicattheboxoffice,aswell.Thedramaticpotentialofamnesiahasbeenrealized
andexploitedextensivelyandconsistentlybyfilmmakersthroughoutthe20thcentury,starting,
infact,fromtheageofsilentmovies(Baxendale2004:1480).Inrecentyears,though,therehas
been a veritable surge of amnesiacsploitation movies. From the data selected by Baxendale it
transpiresthathalfofallthefilmsevermadeintheEnglishspeakingworldfeaturingamnesiacs,
were produced in the last twenty years. Quite naturally, the phenomenon captured the
attentionoffilmcritics.AccordingtoTIMEscriticLevGrossman(2004),theideaofamnesiaisa
virus we caught from our computers, a kind of selfdoubt and identityanxiety induced by the
immaterialstreamsof digitaldata themselves:We spendalldayworkingina ghost worldof
digitaldata,computerizedinformationthatsmanipulable,rewritable,copyable,rebootableand
erasable.(...)Ifall we knowofreality,ofourselves,isinformation,andinformationisinfinitely
malleable, how can we be sure it hasn't been corrupted? What if we all have amnesia, and
we'vejustforgottenthatwehaveit?.Inasimilarvein,TheNewYorkTimesscriticbelievesthat
moviescurrentfascinationwithamnesiareflectsagrowingsentimentthatlivingahistoricallyis
notallit'sbeencrackeduptobe;thatourpasthasbeenhijacked,andwewantitback.After
the long, rough night that this new millennium has so far been, maybe we're all desperately
tryingtorememberwhoweare.(Rafferty2003)

It is relatively few films, though, that explicitly deal with the memory/technology

interplay, and, rather predictably, they all belong to the science fiction genre. In all of them,
moreover,thisinterplaymaterializesintheformofhightechmemoryerasingdevices.Whether

usedbysinisterpowerstomanipulatepeople,asinBladeRunner(R.Scott,1982),TotalRecall(P.
Verhoeven, 1990) and Paycheck (J. Woo, 2003) all three coming out of the paranoid,
hallucinatory world of Philip Dicks stories or by people who wish to switch off deadend
emotional affairs, as in Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (M. Gondry, 2004), or by a
governmentwhichprotects thepublicssanity,as in Men in Black(B.Sonnenfeld, 1997). Inall
cases the devices are quite clearly mindtwisting, personalityaltering and realitydistorting
technologies.

Overall,filmcriticspayscantattentiontotheprecise functionamnesiahasindifferent

filmsorgenres.Iftheyweremorediscriminatingtheywouldobserve,forexample,thesteadily
growing group of recent movies that deal with Alzheimers disease and dementia. Something
that is evidently due to the rising social visibility and impact of these mental impairements,
rather thantotheirsignificanceassocioculturalmetaphorsofidentityanxiety. With theirfar
fetchedspeculations,ontheotherhand,theyseemtooffernomorethanpopularisedversions
oftheculturalcriticstheories.Inthelatter,moreover,amnesiafiguresinthesameinaccurate,
exaggerated and overdramatised way as in popular cinema. If profound amnesia is a clinical
conditionwhichisextremelyrareintherealworld,(Baxendale2004:1481),itsappropriationon
the part of some prevailing critical narratives raises serious doubts about its pertinence and
usefulness.
Heidegger gave central place to the idea of forgetting in his critique of Western
philosophy and civilization, accusing both for forgetting the question of Being
(Seinvergessenheit). The modern era, with its scientifictechnological advances is, according to
him,theresultofthisforgetting.TheantitechnologicaltraditionthatconnectsHeideggerwith
contemporaryculturalcriticismseemstopresumeacertainforgettingbothattheoriginandat
theculminationofmodernity,tosuggestthatamnesiamarksboththebeginningandtheendof
history.
Thethemeofculturalamnesiaandofamnesiainducingmediaenteredcriticaldiscourse
atatimewhenthesocialorganizationofmemorybegantodisintegrateunderthepressureofa
pluralityofnewagentsofmemorycarriersofpreviouslyrepressed,forgotten,marginalisedor
oulawedmemoriesandofnewmnemonictechnologiesi.e.thenewcommunicationmedia.
Thesocalledidentityormemorypoliticsofthepreviousdecadescouldnotpossiblyhavebeen
fought, let alone won, without the use of taperecorders, handheld film and video cameras,
community radio and recording facilities, and more recently, the Internet, digital cameras and

broadband radio. There is a crucial link, in other words, between the democratization and
pluralization of social memory and the development and diffusion of modern communication
media. The radical recent transformation of the socialorganization of memory also involved a
new, heterogenous variety of agents who operate outside the control or supervision of the
official mnemonic institutions: professional associations and trade unions, local and regional
associations, corporations, local authorities, diasporic communities, and of course, the mass
mediathemselves.
As a result of all these factors, a whole new economy of social memory has emerged,
whose unregulated, decentralized and multivoiced character, plays havoc with our inherited
routines and established protocols regarding our access to and use of historical and cultural
resourses.Itisnoaccident,then,thatmanyteachersandintellectuals,thepresumedguardians
and carriers of cultural memory, revolt against this new social organization of social memory,
whoseconfusinglackoforder,centerordisciplineseemstothemasdisorientatingasamnesia.
Truthis,however,thatinsteadofamnesia what wearefaced with isratherastateofcultural
hypermnesia.Thepasthasindeedbecomepartofthepresentinwayssimplyunimaginablein
earlier centuries, destabilizing the once rigid boundaries between past and present (Huyssen
2003: 1). Modern media, by bringing the different timespaces close enough to form a single,
unifiedherenow,theyeffectivelyforgedanewnotionofthepresentasglobalcopresence.In
asimilarway,theyalsosuccededinbringingthepastcloseenoughtomakeitavibrantandvital
part of the present, in ways hitherto inconceivable. In both cases, the loss of distance has
meant, according to Benjamins famous injunction, a loss of aura, of authority and of
mystification,aswellasagaininunderstanding,inperception,inpoliticization(Benjamin1973).
The projected growth of digital heritage in the near future, promises the further
culminationofthisderegulative,yethypermnesiacprocess,tonew,unforseenlevels.Stephane
Mallarm begins his legendary Le livre, instrument spirituel, declaring that tout, au monde,
existepouraboutirunlivre.Oneandahalfcenturylaterandgiventhecountlessdigitilisation
projectsgoingon internationally,one isinclinedtothinkthat everything inthe world exists to
endup inadigitalformat!Thisdevelopment, infact,isneithera matterofimaginationnorof
choice,butofdirehistoricalnecessity.

Modern cultural history is punctuated by three moments of massive transcription or

transcoding of past cultural works into a new medium. The first such moment was the post
Renaissancetranscriptionofmanuscriptcultureintothenewprintmedium.Startinginlate15th

century,thisprocessreacheditsclimaxinthe18th century(LeroiGurhan1993:261).Its main

consequencewastheimmensegrowthofexternalized,collectivememory,agrowththatfound
itsmostcharacteristicexpressioninthepathbreakinginstitutionoftheEncyclopaediaof1751.
The second moment involved the transcription of print and image culture into film
(photography, cinema, microfilm, microfiche). Overwhelmed by the various popular or artistic
applications of film, we tend to forget that it was the medium that was the true heir of the
encyclopaedicprojecttorecord,collectandrepresenttheworld.Aninstructiveinstanceofthis
project that, directely or indirectly, suffuses the whole of the photographic culture, was Paul
Otlet and Robert Goldschmidts proposal, at the beginning of the 20th century, to make the
cheap, compact, easy to use and reproduce microfiche the basis for the creation of a World
Center Library of Juridicial, Social and Cultural Documentation. Their plan did not materialize,
buttheirvisionwasadoptedbyallgreatLibrariesaroundthe world, whichproceeded tobuild
hugecollectionsofmicrophotographedprintmaterials.
Thethirdmomentconcernstheongoingtranscriptionofallpreviousmediacontentinto
thedigitalformat(text,image,sound).
Every one of these successive moments of transcription or remediation, to use Bolter
andGrusins(2000)moreaccurateterm,involvesasweepingprocessofculturalrewiring;atotal
rearrangement,thatis,ofthestateregardingthemobility,reproducibilityandinterconnectivity
of mnemonic resources. With digitization, for example, cultural heritage turns at least
potentially intoapublicutility: everyone canplug inandtapintoitsresources eitherfreeof
chargeor,atanominalprice.Butthatneednotbeso.Weareallawareofthemanifoldvested
andcorporate intereststhatpreventsuchadevelopmentfromtakingplace. Toa large extent,
the revolutionary potential of digital heritage lies presicely here: that it creates, more
persistently and powerfully than any prior cultural technology, the conditions for making
cultural heritage a truly public domain. An immediately available and freely accessible cultural
heritageissuretochangesocietyasprofoundlyas typographydid,andhopefully, muchmore
rapidlythaniteverdid.
Typographywaslateinexertingitstransformativepowertothefull,mainlybecausethe
powers that be were reluctant if not outright hostile to make provisions for universal
literacy.FiveandahalfcenturiesafterGutenberg,the worldisstillnowherenearinachieving
universal literacy. Reading and writing continue, thus, to be the most vital and controversial
cultural skills on the face of the earth. Film literacy, on the other hand, the skills required to

makesenseofphotographicculture,hasremainedseriouslyunderdevelopedinmostplacesas
well.Thequestiontodayishowquicklyandhoweffectivelywilldigitalliteraciesbecomepartof
the universal standard curriculum. Without this, the public availability of cultural heritage will
remainemptyrhetoric,apromiseunfulfilled,apossibilitymissed.

Longtermpreservationofdigitallystoredworksisnotfreeoftheperennialproblemsof

wear and deterioration. In fact, as Robert Darnton points out, traditional Library collections
mustandwillgoongrowingirrespectiveofthevisionaryGoogleBookSearchprojecttodigitize
fiveofthebiggestresaerchlibrariesintheworldHarvard,Michigan,Stanford,NewYorkPublic
andOxfordsBodleian.Itsnotonlythatthewholeprojectishamperedbythetimeandthecost
involved, but also by that singular, distressing law that governs digital evolution, i.e. that
hardwareandsoftwarebecomeobsoletesorapidlyastocondemnalldigitaltextstobelongto
anendangeredspecies(Darnton2008:79).

Taking a more comprehensive and less demonizing view, heritage represents a much

more pluralistic, multivoiced and demotic version of national culture (Samuel 1994). It is, in
effect, the sum total of the identity narratives of a certain society. In this sense, the
developmentofdigitalheritageplatformsmustbeassessedfromthepointofviewoftheforms
of cultural citizenship they promote. The questions that every digital heritage project has to
answeriswhatformsofculturalinclusionandparticipationitencourages?Whatkindsofsocial
memoryit constructsandlegitimizes?Whatkindofcommunitiesofknowledgeandmemory it
acknowledges and validates? How far does it go in democratizing the processes of creating,
transmitting and accessing records, documents and resources. As various researchers have
shownindifferentcasestudies(seeeg.Brown2007),theculturalpoliticsofthedigitalhistorical
objectisquitedifferentfromthatoftheanalogueobject.Itsfreedomfromlocation,contextand
materiality, gives digital objects a unique advantage to interpellate diverse and disjointed
audiences, createtranslocal communities, and energize an unforseen variety of contexts, uses
andinterpretations.

Backin1953,Adornoremarkedthattheprocesswhichtodayrelegateseveryworkofart

tothemuseum...isirreversible.Farfromfindingthisprospectreprehensible,Adornoaddsthat
it presages a situation in which art, having completed its estrangement from human ends,
returns... to life(Adorno 1981:185).Thesame can besaidfortheprocess whichinour time
relegates every work of culture to some form of digital storage, to one of the many different
shapes of the digital archive. Leaving aside the simplifications and demonizations of much

contemporary cultural criticism, we should emphasize that the significance of this process lies
not in the successful completion of an immense salvage operation, not in the creation of a
digitalNoahsArcforsavingcivilizationfromthedelugeofhistory,but,asAdornosuggested,in
ensuringthataonceestrangedculturereturnstolife.

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