The Family Album: Questioning Memory.

The Family Album Questioning Memory. After 17 years Im back in Shanghai and all a long, my holding has been play make a motioning tricks (Otsuka, 200633). Why do we take im jump ons for family phonograph albums? We take them to ring hoi polloi as they were. Traditionally in portrait delineationy, it has been a point of argument whether a photograph enkindle or can non reveal the accepted sense of a person, their person-to-personity or inner self. To me the photograph is except surface a likeness -, it is what the photographer or archivist wants to be seen, and holds no deeper resonance.In addition, not n incessantlytheless do we want to remember, we want to ack forthwithledge our existence, and in the future, be ourselves remembered as an essential part of the family unit. It is not only close to belonging, precisely close leaving a trace of ourselves that will be around long after we atomic number 18 gone photographs atomic number 18 tokens of immortality. The famil y album some(prenominal) represents what has to be continued and perpetuates the myth of the happy family, which can be construed in quaternate ways depending on the viewer and their motives.The portrayal of the happy family is subject on the various stages of redaction the photographer decides who is included or left bring out, tells the subjects where to bear or sit, and when to say Cheese The collator then decides which photographs be worthy of departure into the album and which will be left in a incase, or thr hold away. The editing and archiving follow perceived ideologies of family floor, reflecting the editors feature purpose and ad hominem viewpoint. Claire Grey believes that history is always a personal account (Holland Spence, 1991 108).But do these photos help us remember or do they alter or replace the real memories of what happened and who the people in the photos rattling were? In this essay, I will attempt to explain why I believe that the memories imbe dded in the family album argon constructs, falsehoods. I am waiver to timbre at insures from six photographers as well as my make family albums to ascertain the accuracy of com confideer keeping generated by character. In looking at a family album, do I take opposite peoples and family members recollections and apply them to my admit history?Collective memory can twist the loyalty and often construct altered variations. As stories pass from one generation to the next, they be prone to fabrication and exaggeration. Lorie Novak states, Our avouch public figures be often tied up in family legend with conversations about family photographs frequently accompanied by embellishment and invention. Photographs and the narratives they inspire can scram substitutes for memories of actual events (Hirsch, 1999 26-27).She also wondered whether the culture omitted from her own family album shaped her memories and analyse this concept in her work (Hirsch, 1999 15). Maybe this is t he analogous for Ingrid Hesling, who, at the age of 16, found out that she was adopted I wonder if this new education changed her memories or merely her perception of her memories it would appear those that were once fond became bitter. She motilityed her good kidhood leading her to relieve oneself work using a gang of old family photos, text and her own contemporary images.Her work is an investigation into how memory can be altered depending on how you relate to the history shadow it and the images documenting it. Analysing Numbers ( direct 1), the eye is drawn instanter to the smiling child clutching her toys, an image taken from the family album, then to the accompanying photo, and at last to its contents, the numbers which symbolically do not reach 16 and the text. The emptiness behind the child and the exceed between her and the numbers enhanced by the strong horizontals metaphorically represents the judicial separation from the truth.The child and toys have c onnotations of family, comfort and home, whereas, the numbers suggest conformity, lack of personal identity and belonging, cosmosness a number without identity. The subject matter is not immediately obvious until the text (both within and out of the image) is included. The initial impression of rapture is underscored and then submerged by a sense of unease, of anger and of betrayal. The pilot program photo should aspirate happiness that the viewer get goings disturbed when the glacial occurs. Is this family image therefore a fabrication, just because the way we see the memory has changed?Were things left out of the Hesling family album images in order to conceal the truth from her? In my own work, I use the family album aesthetic frequently. I seek out, analyse old family photographs, and try to apply them to my work. It fascinates me when I take in images of myself as a child that I have never encountered before. I automatically try to locate any memories associated with the image, despite the situation that they do not exist for me, as I was too young, and attempt to remember stories I may have been told about the photograph.But this is not a true memory it is assimilated from my familys collective memory. Jo Spence said that searching for memories within family photographs, was infeasible (Holland Spence, 1991203). Trish Morrissey is a photographer who looks at the family album as fiction, cautiously constructing the conventions and cliches of the domestic snap shot thus, courting reality by the act of staging. In this way she has created a generic family album, to which anyone can relate her family album has become everybodys family album and countless others instantaneously share the memories.Anne McNeill states in her essay on Morrisseys work that the images in the shoe box are not the killicial history of the family, exactly the ones that got away (Morrissey, 200423). This is an raise concept, in that the family deem some images more important than others proper images are displayed on top of the TV or framed for the wall, whereas the pictures that could be perceived as being more real, of everyday life, are put away in a box or packet to be perused at whiles of reminiscence.I am attracted to Morrisseys work because of the questioning genius of her images. In September 20th, 1985 ( forecast 2), with her sister in the other role, she meticulously roleplays the professional connection between the subjects as well as the peripheral details. However, in contrast to close to family photos, the people in her images rarely smile, forcing the viewer to narrow on the gestures and body language and use them to interpret and reveal hush-hush tensions between family members. Such underlying tensions tell more of the history and linguistic context than smiling faces.Staging allows the viewer to witness Morrissey in the act of constructing photographic misbegoting. illusion draws the eye to the teenage subject, her ex pression, and then to the contrasting expression of the older woman. The deed of conveyance of respect includes the date confirmed by the style and fashion further as it is known that the images are reconstructed and were taken more recently than the title states, this inclusion generates more questions than answers. She questions the truth of the family album. Her images constructed as generic examples, using, and according to, her memories and the pilot inject photos.But how accurately can these be recreated when personal memory and current emotions are present? The reconstruction becomes a new history of her and her sister. Then we discharge it is, and always has been, about her relationship with her sister, and this in turn, makes the viewer question the rigorousness of all family album images the allusion to unacknowledged family tension and the fallacy of the happy family. She questions the genuineness of the entire custom of the family album. Tim Roda is another art ist who recreates personal histories using his memories.Roda uses his family to recreate definitive life-changing memories and second bases from his life his son assumes his childhood role and he becomes his founder. This strikes a chord with me as my current work revolves around the ideas of role contrary child becoming adult and vice versa. Rodas Untitled (Figure 3) ab initio caused me confusion and distress, as if a becalm from a horror look at it is dark, shadowy, and menacing. It is obviously and unapologetically staged, moreover why? It makes me ask questions. What is it about?It is a narrative, exclusively is it fact or fiction? The camera is used to record a moment in time that equilibrates between memories and constructed commentaries, up to now it is a credential of real events for the people taking part in the image making. Although his family are the immediate subjects, the work is filled with metaphorical reverberations of family history and childhood memor ies. initially the composition leads the viewer to the man. What is he doing? Then the attention is drawn to the child with sharp shears, then to the birds hanging from the ceiling.These birds give a context to the image and place it somewhere that is recognisable. The man appears to have been hunting and is subsequently preparing the wolf for cooking. The scene suggests that that they are country people, perchance poor and living off the land the father now teaching the boy by go across on traditions and skills. But is this a true memory or a corrupt, idealised memory? How much of it has been exaggerated or changed from the reality of the one-time(prenominal)? How would we know? Miyako Ishiuchi, in contrast, photographed her late pay offs belongings.She never got on with her mother exclusively was distraught at her death, leading her to create a series of images as a memorial and tri juste a roll of personal belongings, objectified in the images, but subjectified in the phot ographers principal. In this way Ishiuchi sought to create an emotional connection, a sense of personal closeness and history, she never had when her mother was alive. The image is s weaklyly off revolve about does this reflect the true relationship? Despite this, the images remain clinical and quarry the daughter becoming the photographer and archivist of her mothers possessions, using them to create a pseudo family album.Although Figure 4, an image from the Mothers Series, is wasted and ghostly, its forensic detail alluding to death, it is very simple and beautiful, with connotations of family love and loss in some ways a memento mori. It is aesthetically pleasing, like still life, but still death. The image is deeply personal and yet it holds universal meaning. She strives to seize a point of contact between the erstwhile(prenominal) and present. The meaning of this single image is not obvious when viewed on its own, nonetheless becomes clearer when viewed with the others in the series.It is a highly emotive collection of images, reminding me of my own mothers death, my relationship with her and how I dealt with her possessions and my memories of her after she died. One of my favourite photographers of the moment is Chino Otsuka. She has approached the questioning of the family album image in a new and erratic way. At first glance, 1976 and 2005, Kakamura, Japan (Figure 8) appears to be an actual family album photograph, maybe of a mother and daughter, maybe a holiday snap. However, once you are made conscious(predicate) of the digital alteration, it becomes much more interesting and poses galore(postnominal) questions about the context.Otsuka includes verses in her book, which help to explain her intentions One by one, I retrieve fragments of memories and paste them all together (Otsuka, 200637). This has double meaning the pasting both psychological as well as physical. The final image is a construct both as a photograph and as a memory. At fir st glance, she could be taken for the childs mother, sister, or aunt. It makes me question familial roles and place within the family. She has created time travel past becomes present, the present becomes the future, back and forth, travelling in time (Otsuka, 00631). This makes us question, if we could go back, what would we do, say or change? In actuality Otsuka photographed herself in 2005, replicating the correct light conditions, and then digitally compositing the new image next to herself as a child. The original image was perfectly symmetrical, with the child in the centre. The addition of the adult shifts the balance. But what balance has changed? Is it merely the symmetry or is it rather the balance of power and control? Here because the adult and child are the akin person, the family album becomes a mockery.She speaks of memory, Until I look for it, it will hide evermore Just when I have forgotten it, it comes into sight and when I finally catch it I realise how much o f it has escaped (Otsuka, 200639). She is questioning her own memory and realising her memory lies to her. sluice the recreation of the memory will in the end be corrupted. Here she categorically states that nothing can be receive at face value. The apparent truth may in fact be corrupt, but to accentuate her belief in this dishonesty she has impair it further.She may in fact remember the original memory but has replaced it with a falsehood. This event never happened, could never happen, it is an impossibility a ocular paradox. As my attention is drawn first to the child, then the woman, then the shadows, I seem to be searching for a reason to disprove the truth of this image. Why is the knowledge that it is fake not enough? Am I still so programmed to accept the photograph as truth, that I must find proof that the photograph is a lie? How then do these photographers interpretations of the family album reflect in my response to the images in my own? by means of family photos, I place myself within my familys history. If they, as I believe, mean nothing, then how does that in turn affect how I view my history and my memories? Christmas (Figure 9) was taken at my fathers parents flat in Glasgow, in1972. It is not unusual in any way. It does not differ greatly from other family album images. In fact, the majority of families have very similar images in their collections. I, at three years old, stand between my grandparents, seemingly being presented to the camera, with my mother and father (and the dog) at the back.My father, an amateur photographer, would have proudly taken the photo using the self-timer, explaining the not-quite perfect stance of the subjects. I assume it is an one-on-one image, and not part of a series, although through the nature of editing as spoken about previously -, other images, taken at the same time, may have been discarded or muddled. This means that I am unable to build a picture of the whole holiday it is merely a captured moment in time. My eye is first drawn to myself, perhaps looking for recognition, then to my Grandparents and my mother all three of whom are now dead -, then to my father.The image was taken in the tradition of family enactment to commemorate the family being together (our family lived abroad and only visited Scotland occasionally). You would expect this to be a happy time, however, my grandfather and I who reputedly enjoyed and sought out being photographed are noticeably uncomfortable. On closer inspection, I can see that we are not in fact the happy family my father wished to depict. It reminds me of Trish Morrisseys work, where the tensions between family members are apparent despite the fake smiles attempting to mantle up the real feelings.However, this image was intended only for family viewing, so why the faking? All the people in this picture will have been aware of the reality. Who are they faking for? I presume it can only be the tradition of smiling for the camera and a subconscious conveyance to future generations of family and friends that we were the prototypal happy family. Certain things in the image trigger my sensory memory, such as the material of the seat, the curtains and carpet, but I have no optic memory of this time.Roland Barthes wrote about his sensory memory being triggered by an image my mother is hugging me, a child, against her I can waken in myself the tousled softness of her crepe de chine and the perfume of her rice powder (Barthes, 1982 65). I found an image of myself aged six that I had previously not seen, and although I do not remember the photograph being taken, I do disengage the texture, colour and smell of my dress, and associated images of my Mother leaning everyplace the sewing machine making it. argon all these fake memories?Even if I cross-referenced with someone else that was there, their memory would be different as it is as personal to them as my memories are to me. To me this is the truth, as it is a ll I have. Is it bring out to have some believed memory, no matter how untruthful, than no memory at all? Looking to my own, more recent, family album images I have observe that the family album has recently begun to change in style and content, partially due(p) to the on rank of digital cameras and computers. It is no semipermanent merely portraiture but also has a documentary style. Gone are the formal (or informal) constitute portraits of individuals and family groups.People now take more pictures of their friends and family candidly, when the subject is unaware of the image being taken. These may not be intended for the official family album, but are most familys more personal shoe box pictures. This raises the question of whether the memories associated with these images are relate to differently by both the photographer and the subject. Are these recalled memories more real than formal, posed images? As photography changes in our digital and computer ground society, so does the way we take, edit and construct images for the family album.There are now someer mistakes made when taking images. Only a few years ago, films were shot and printed, and all the images were kept, even the mistakes (cut off heads, fingers in shot, mischievously exposed, etc), whereas, now, with digital technology, the editing is done in camera. The bad or im manageable shots are deleted and re-shot before printing (if they are printed at all). There is now also a mass profusion of images, whereas before, due to cost of film and printing, families were more selective with their image taking, and consequently saved every image, however bad.Images now, are more likely to be kept on disc, losing the tactile quality we associate with photographs. The family album is becoming no longer a literal book of images. They are spread throughout net profit on social nedeucerking sites. Has this given the family album less value? sure the extended family can now have instant access to the family album, but are they really interested in any other images but their own? Why do we insist on sharing our most personal family moments with anyone and everyone?Again, I think it is about portraying the perfect, happy family as well as spreading our immortality as far and wide as possible before we die. These modern methods of image dissemination negate the sizeableness and relevance of the family album as a historical document, and we cynically become blase about images in general. In Umberto Ecos book, The Mysterious flare up of Queen Loana, the protagonist is struck with almost complete memory loss, and in attempting to reconstruct his personal history, he comes to realise that he cannot rely on other peoples remembrances.He is shown a photograph of his parents, and states, You tell me that these two were my parents, so now I know, but its a memory that you have given me. Ill remember the photo from now on, but not them (Eco, 2005 24). He then retreats to his old famil y home and spends all his time in the attic, attempting to regain his memories, but only discovers that memory once lost cannot be regained, merely re-learnt Our memory is never fully ours, nor are the pictures ever unmediated representations of our past. we both construct a fantastic past and set out on a detective trail to find other versions of a real one (Hirsch, 1997 14). Similarly, Mier Joel Wigoder speaks of placing this photograph (Figure 12) of his father and grandfather on his desk, in place of an image of himself and his father that never existed. It is not his memory as he was not there, but it is a memory he wishes he had. He has invented a memory (or a fantasy? ) for himself based on a photograph taken before he was born. However, it is possible that all memories are created in this way.I have looked at other peoples family photos and used them to prompt my own memories of similar times, places and people. As broom Cameron says, Our memory is a constant process of writing and rewriting, crossing out, lapping images and distortion. It shifts and flows and moves without a fixed foundation (Cameron, 20026). Nan Goldin believed that by taking photos of her friends and family, she would be able to retain her own memories of them and not be influenced by the memories of others (Goldin, 19869), but even in her candid style that seems impossible. Annette Kuhn states, Family photographs are supposed to evoke memories that might have little or nothing to do with what is very in the picture. The photograph is a prop, a prompt, a pre-text but if a photograph is somewhat contingent in the process of memory production, what is the experimental condition of the memories actually produced? (Kuhn, 2002 13). When I recall some memory or look at old photos of myself when I was young, I could just as considerably be remembering a particular thing because my Mother had related it to me when she was alive. However, I may be seeing these memories through ro se tinted glasses, editing out the bad times before I can recall them.Personal family photos are not the only ones to generate an emotional response, and photographers such as Morrissey use this to effect. September 20th, 1985 (Figure 2) elicits an emotional response in me, making me put-on by triggering my own personal memories, remembrance of my own family album images and experiences creating a transferrable memory. Everyone has some images similar to this in their collection. It makes us reassess our own memories and question them. The family album forms the basis of a pictorially gilded plunk for of Chinese Whispers, as family stories and histories are passed down the generations.Memory is ever changing dependent on the viewer or narrators state of mind and intentions, and these stories, intentionally or not, become distorted, exaggerated or even fabricated. This is not memory it is learning, and the learning gradually replaces the real memory until, finally, it is completel y lost in the past and the faked history becomes legend. Everything is not always as it seems in the family album. Smiles are often faked (even in unhappy, tense situations), and everyday tensions and power struggles between family members are hidden, the very act of taking a posed photograph is essentially faking the memory at its conception.Thus family albums can be seen as fiction, a subjective story rather than, if there is such a thing, an bearing history. The photograph can merely show what was in front of it at a specific moment in time, but the mind takes this information and runs with it, creating stories around the image In short, to remember is to reconstruct, in part on the basis of what we have learned or said since (Eco, 2005 25). Figure 2 Morrissey, T. 2004. September 20th, 1985. Figure 3 RODA, T. 2004. Untitled.Figure 4 ISHIUCHI, M. 2002. (Mothers Series). Figure 7 ISHIUCHI, M. 2002. Mothers 24. Figure 8 OTSUKA, C. 2005. 1976 and 2005, Kakamura, Japan. Figure 9 PI PE FAMILY ALBUM. 1972. Christmas Figure 12 WIGODER FAMILY ALBUM. 1942. Louis and Geoffrey Wigoder walking down Westmoreland St, Dublin, 1942. Figure 1 HESLING, I. 2000. Numbers. Figure 11 BEST FAMILY ALBUM. 2008. Untitled. Figure 6 ISHIUCHI, M. 2002. Mothers 33 Figure 5 ISHIUCHI, M. 2001. Mothers 55 Figure 10 BEST FAMILY ALBUM. 2007. Untitled. 3