Reading The Aesthetics of Memory: Ruins, Visibility and Witnessing (Palacios, 2019) opens up new possibility in reimagining the concept of erasure and (in)visibilization. Palacios introduced two different types of erasure in her visit to ex-detention sites in Chile. The first type is the erasure of historical wound (i.e. bodies, sites, etc) for a “whiter” and modern nation. In the case of Concentration Camp Chacabuco and Pisagua Prison, the idea of haunting prevails as the places endured governmental intervention yet still remained “untamed.” It is as if there is a force within the two places that refused to be objectified, analyzed, mourned, or to be treated as something from the past. The shouting force of historical trauma is like an unremovable graffiti that was repainted over and over again yet still comes back to haunt the urban space. It might be temporarily removed but its absence alone signifies unnaturalness, thus prompt the recreation of new graffiti to solidify the suspicion that something has gone wrong. This removal and reemergence is not uncommon on Vassar campus either. The anti-semitism posters that were found to be put on walls of several buildings on campus on Oct. 7th 2017, for instance, is a harsh reminder of what we deemed as old, as non-Vassar issues bubbling up the surface. I remembered it distinctly because it’s not a simple episodic memory of what happened (i.e. someone put the poster up). In fact, few witnessed the process of taking place. I think about where these posters went after they were taken down. Presumably crumbled up in a trash can, gone but also lingering. The inability to fully trace the actors in the act lends its power to the thing itself given that one can’t efficiently undo something without an identifiable doer. There is always a someone and that someone can be anyone. The object thus became a mystery that can’t be closely read and is only accessible in the feeling.
Avery Gordon in Ghostly Matters (2008) used the term “haunting” to frame the new sociological imagination—to view with both rationality and affect. Especially in the case of ruins, the eye is logically analyzing the absence and thus in a way looking at the impossible, but our body reacts to the presence (both physical and temporal) of the historical wound—a chill down the spine. To begin to grasp the aesthetics of ruins, one has to cease the practice of mind/body duality as if witnessing is consisted of a hierarchical structure—first sensation, then perception and finally interpretation. Not only is the process not linear, individuals are not to be expected to complete every step when witnessing. Yet, this is not an action without risk or constraints. Zembylas (2015) pointed out that the self is always haunted by what the self should think, which in the case of historical trauma could trigger obligatory empathy. In other words, witnessing with affect is not something that naturally occurs or inherited innately. It has its educational potential that shall include the embracing of opacity and absence. The alternative regarding ethical witnessing also resonates with what Raymond Williams described as a structure of feeling—the reading of the emergent. In contrast to a fully formed thought which the word itself indicates a permanent past tense, a feeling is not completely settled. There are parallel possibilities exists in one presentation that the witness’ experience cannot and should not be equated with the material/historical conditions that constitutes such experience (Scott, 1991). In other words, to witness with affect also means to not “witness” the whole picture as the whole was never really attainable given complicated concentration of temporal and physical values on a historical object.
The second type of erasure Palacios addresses is the paradoxical erasure through the deliberate memorialization of a historical wound. In the attempt to mark down ruins, the ruins are also erased. Contrary to the lack of symbolism in what has been discussed so far, this type of erasure existed in the saturation of symbols and the reconstruction of a complete truth. In the case of Villa Grimaldi, the state commemorated the historical injustice through the construction of “permanent aesthetic” interventions including a cubic metal structure that was made to exhibit the remains of train lines found under the sea to which victims were tied to and made disappear. Despite its progressive attempt in reforming the typical “museum” place which worship solely the authentic object, the preservation and extraction of ruins/things as if the meaning is readily solidified (i.e. to be mourned) nevertheless simplified the power of remains. Avery Gordon (2008) quoted Kipnis to elucidate the nature of visibility—“It is a complex system of permission and prohibition, of presence and absence, punctuated alternatively by apparition and hysterical blindness (p.15).” With the hyper-digitalization of information, objects can be easily commemorated or even forever documented in the cyber realm. Phones and camera, as well as tags and filters consequently became the equivalent of state intervention on the personal level. In other words, electronic devices so intimate to human existence, might have effectively disrupted this system of “permission and prohibition, presence and absence.” Reading this article, I was reflecting on my attempt to restore authentic objects from museum spaces on my personal devices. This second layer of memorization forces these historical things to become sharable and criticizable objects as the digitalization reduced a three dimensional relationship between the thing and its context into flattened digital codes.The common phrase of “capturing a shot” ironically signifies the forceful possession of thingness in this process. The construct of consent and censorship requires an active “yes” or “no” that is readily assumed when some things are laid in plain sight. The preexisting state of exposure renders the freedom of intervention. Knowing the intrusiveness of contemporary photography, what is to be done is a question hard to answer.
It is possible that the other side(s) of ethical witnessing lies in the ethical un-witnessing—the intentional look away from a dominant narrative so as to acknowledge the improbability of absolute clarity. The inserted blankness in memorization (i.e. the option of omitting introduction, or even definition), which means acknowledging that to remember something means to forget others, creates space for both the viewer and the object to experience its potential. It is therefore an experiment for my zine project to play around with the consciousness of opacity in a given shot and to feel both the reluctance and curiosity of capturing a shot around campus that does not have identifiable authorship, a production date or even the memory of its own producer. I acknowledge my struggle in documenting these emergent narratives (e.g. writings on chairs around campus) but do not wish to refrain myself from words. Much as I am aware of the limitation of language, it is still one the most familiar ways to convey feelings and emotions from one point to another. The zine is therefore to be read as a documentation of my interaction (how they influence and how I look back at them) with these things on campus. The unspoken and undefined are an open invitation to the readers.
Work cited: Gordon, A. (2008). Ghostly matters: Haunting and the sociological imagination (New University of Minnesota Press ed.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Palacios, M. (2019). The aesthetics of memory: Ruins, visibility and witnessing. The Sociological Review (Keele), 67(3), 602-620. doi:10.1177/0038026118818832
Scott, J. (1991). The Evidence of Experience. Critical Inquiry, 17(4), 773-797. Retrieved November 12, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343743
Zembylas, M. (2015). ‘Pedagogy of discomfort’ and its ethical implications: The tensions of ethical violence in social justice education. Ethics and Education, 10(2), 163-174. doi:10.1080/17449642.2015.1039274
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