On Cultural Reproduction and Memory
‘I post, therefore I am’ dr James Fox, BBC
Culture, like everything else in this world, exists within not three but four dimensions — the three spatial dimensions (3D) and time. This simplistic interpretation of Einstein’s theory of relativity provides a base to this essay’s understanding the relationship between traveller and culture. Photography is essential in capturing and understanding the experience of new cultures discovered via travel, with the architectural historian Ben Campkin arguing that photographs freeze time in order for it to be understood. However, culture isn’t a static unchanging entity which can be ‘frozen’. No, it’s amorphous, perpetually absorbing new phenomena and dispeling others. Therefore, I argue that there are better ways to capture the essence of different cultures than photography, and subsequently better ways to produce the artifacts of memory that we so dearly cherish.
Throughout history photographs have captured cultural shifts, however there is a major issue with the use of photography to document them. According to Susan Sontag ‘the camera makes reality atomic, manageable and opaque’. Of course experienced reality, in situ is far from manageable or atomic, it unfurls as we experience it. We can only make sense of reality retrospectively. By taking a photograph and documenting experience in a manner absent of time and motion, the individual is at once removed from what surrounds them. The action of taking a photograph means the photographer must temporarily step out, remove themselves from a contextual reality in order to ‘capture’ it. Reality becomes external.
The freezing of time inherent in the photograph means that only one aspect of culture is represented; the visual. Culture is experienced in an all encompassing manner, where the senses are engaged simultaneously. For instance, food is a cultural cornerstone and is poorly represented solely through the visual, for how can a photograph capture the sense of anticipation when an individual is about to try a previously unknown dish, or indeed, how it tastes? It can’t, because experience is rooted in time. So, how do we experience and capture culture in a manner that includes the flow of time?
Take an illustration of Eiffel Tower. What it shows isn’t the tower per se, but rather the Eiffel Tower being looked at. It shows not only the external environment, but also how the illustrator interprets the world around them. When someone experiences the Eiffel Tower, there is what lies before, the impact and the evocation of sublimity in first encountering it and the lingering effects of being in the tower’s company thereafter.
The above is a paraphrasing of John Berger, specifically his documentary About Time (available on YouTube) in which he compares the differences in photography and illustration through how they interact with time. Imagine that time is a river, to take a photograph is akin to dropping in a stick and watching it flow downstream, whereas illustration is moving against the river’s flow in order to achieve the stationary. Illustration embodies the flow of time that photography cannot, and vicariously captures the experience of the illustrator through its creation. Yet, it is still limited in that it only captures the visual, and for many of us, the ability or time to create satisfactory images is lacking. However, there is another means of capturing the essence of a culture which draws upon the temporal in a similar means to illustration, but is less time and skill sensitive: the written word. In order to jot down a brief poem or observation, a traveller needs only to have something to write with or a mobile phone.
In a similar manner to illustration, the written artifact produced isn’t necessarily about a certain subject, but the interpretation of said subject by the individual. This is where the benefit of the written word is revealed. Not only does writing capture the experienced reality of the traveller but it is also the best vehicle to capture the essential, non-visual elements which constitute culture. The impact of the various flavours, scents, mannerisms, idioms, customs and traditions upon those experiencing it can only be captured through the written word. Writing is also a temporal activity, the writer writes within time and moves with what surrounds them. If the photograph has become a certificate of experiential authenticity, something to be shown to others, then the written word, be it a poem, a diary or even a simple list of things observed, is the personal artefact produced solely for the benefit of the writer.
I have written this essay from isolation, for Covid-19 has rendered travel essentially impossible. Therefore, as a method of distraction and passing time, I decided to flick through some of my old notebooks and came across a brief poem I sketched out whilst in Ronda, Andalucía; the most incredible place I have ever experienced. I deciphered the words, a stream of consciousness scrawled in blunt pencil:
But one cloud, meek
Pink flowered tree
A wall, 4 stones, 1, 2, 3, 4 — DROP!
Who knows what lies beneath?
One the other side
Manyana I scream
Could be paradise
The essence of the unknown brings joy
The incomprehensible
A photograph, a 1000 mumbled words
I have 49
Here, quality is not derived from objective standards, but from the ability to conjure up the experience of writing it. After reading this poem I turned to my laptop screen and dug-up the photos I took on that special day — they were nice but couldn’t metaphorically take me back there, whereas the poem did. It achieved something that the camera does every time it is used, it temporarily removed me from my own context, transporting me back to the 19th of July 2017, to the oppressive heat and joyous shade, the wall where I sat and ate lunch, where I wrote these words, the Cicadas chirping over distant mountains. It was through this experience, at home under enforced isolation that I realised, the written word is the best embalmer of experience, of memory and of course, of culture.
