Recalling memory

Life without memory is no life at all, just as intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.


Luis Buñuel 
in Cine Qua Non

As we may think

[The Human Mind] operates by association. With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain. It has other characteristics, of course; trails that are not frequently followed are prone to fade, items are not fully permanent, memory is transitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of trails, the detail of mental pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature.

Vannevar Bush 

Pockets Full of Memories (George Legrady, 2001)

Objects data

Conceived as an installation on the topic of the archive and memory, "Pockets full of Memories" was exhibited on the main floor of the Centre Pompidou from April 10 to September 3, 2001. During this time, 20000 visitors came to view the installation and contributed over 3000 objects in their possession, digitally scanning and describing them. This information was stored in a database and organized by an algorithm that positioned objects of similar value near each other in a two-dimensional map. The map of objects was projected in the gallery space and also accessible online at www.pocketsfullofmemories.com where individuals in the gallery and at home could review the objects and add comments and stories to any of the them.

Pockets Full of Memories

Chris Marker, Memórias dos Tempos (parte 2)

Sans Soleil (1983)

Cineasta profundamente “empenhado” acompanhando as lutas políticas ao longo do tempo e dos espaços (e há breves imagens de Portugal no imediato pós-25 de Abril em Le Fond de l’air est rouge e Sans Soleil), Marker foi elaborando a memória destes tempos. E no entanto os seus filmes não são estritamente do real imediato, do cinema como “janela aberta para o mundo” mas um processo de montagem, retomando a tradição dos soviéticos dos anos 20. Na montagem não há um tempo único mas vários estratos, o passado e o presente como também o futuro: no famoso La Jetée, feito com planos fixos, a memória de infância da personagem principal é afinal a sua própria morte. O cinema torna-se tempos, no plural. Como assinalou Raymond Bellour, Marker dá a ver que a característica maior do cinema não é tanto o movimento como o tempo. E isto na ficção científica de La Jetée ou Level 5 como nas memórias dos acontecimentos.

Augusto M. Seabra

The Art of Memory (Frances Yates)

Few people know that the Greeks, who invented many arts, invented an art of memory which, like their other arts, was passed on to Rome whence it descended in the European tradition. This art seeks to memorise through a technique of impressing 'places' and 'images' on memory. It has usually been classed as 'mnemotechnics', which in modern times seems a rather unimportant branch of human activity. But in the ages before printing a trained memory was vitally important; and the manipulation of images in memory must always to some extent involve the psyche as a whole.