The Collective Memory- Cyber Memory

In re-reading, The Collective Memory, by Maurice Halbwachs, I started thinking about the memories he was discussing and how utterly concrete they all were. Halbwachs talked of buildings and walls and stones as town markers reminding locals of memories that bound folks together. While I am of an age that I can relate to these kinds of historic memories in a visceral way, I kept thinking about my son’s generation and the generations that have come since. Younger generations have strong, shared memories that are very different, in locations that are real, but cyber-real, computer generated.

For my son, experiences have been shared amongst friends in places that are remembered and have even been revisited maybe many times. They even recall stories of adventures, losses and wins in these places they discovered or created. I’m not a part of this life, so it’s foreign to me, but I know it has taken up a large part of their lives growing up. Even as they have entered into adult life, they find time to spend with each other in these other worlds, even though they now live in different parts of the world.

The time they spent developing these cyber-memories has taken time away from time they could have been developing real-life memories in the outside world. (And, I must say, they have traveled the world together and have real life adventures to remember too. They do get outside!) I can’t say this computer-generated world of memories is right or wrong. I won’t be living into their future and seeing how this plays out, so I want to withhold judgement. But, as a person in the middle of my life, it give me a strange perspective. It leaves me with a feeling of loss for the value of neighborhood unity that I experiences growing up, even if it came with some strife. Communication builds a network and a quality of life that defines a community. We then build attachments to our neighborhoods and value the space we live in because we are invested in our space in a familiar, cherished way. When a great amount of the population is inside their homes most of the day, interacting with each other through the internet over many years, I wonder if that leaves much to build a strong sense of community-identity from in the long run.

The reading dealt entirely on relationships of all sorts, from local to business. I just wonder how this cyber relationship may help, hinder or maybe have no lasting effect on forming stronger community identity in the future. As the 20-somethings mature, they will find it a more pressing issue and I hope that there is some positive consequences that rises from this social-cyber environment they have invested so much time in.

Right to the City- A Focus On the Arts

In the reading, Right to the City, I was taken with the power that the working class has on reforming an ideal city. The city planners, architects, politician, etc., are powerless to do their work successfully without the guidance and leadership of the common folk just living their lives. If a fabulous building is planned for, funded and constructed, but has no practical function in the community, those city resources are wasted. Of course, that makes sense. But what I thought wasn’t well discussed in the article was the issue of art’s value in this process of defining a new city identity. Or at least, I didn’t get a lot out of the reading in regards to this topic. But it lead me to think about it a bit.

What is missing right now from most growing communities is focus and shared interests. We used to find it in small farmer’s markets with adjoining ladies’ hair salons and men’s barber shops, or in neighborhood parks, churches and town dance halls in smaller communities. These days, our jobs, our ethnicity and especially our economic situations keep us at a distance from one another and our communities apart. This keeps our city money spread thin and our personal interest in each other pretty much left to segments on to the evening news. Sad. Maybe these aren’t new situations, but if we are taking on the topics brought up in the reading, The Right to The City, then I am going to follow up on the idea of developing a new city concept using art to draw individual and disparate interests together.

The one thing that all societies share is that we create art, whether for decorative purposes, for story telling or for self-expression. The problem I have seen is that we present and enjoy it within separate communities. It would be better to advance this idea and create city centers that share cultural, outside displays in a playful, non-scholastic manner that becomes a part of the environment. That way we might become a part of each others communities in a common, easily accepted way. Unlike walking into a museum, and getting a "lesson" in culture that is dry and possibly off-putting, this would be inviting and inclusive. I could see city centers and city parks where a mix of cultural art is displayed together as a community of art. We may eat different food, speak different languages, pray to different deities or none at all, but we can all appreciate an expression of line, color, form and shape that relates to each other without words.

As new immigrants enter into city centers, they can find their way into the community through art. It isn’t the only answer, but let art play a role. It has great power and has stood the test of time as a force of communication throughout centuries, beyond national boundaries. The cost would be minimal if we look at the social benefits. Cities are always trying to achieve city identity and failing. Through art they could create unity and long lasting points of interest that all groups could share as one. Just a thought…

The Situationists Revisited

As I am reading through specific sections from, The Situationist City, preparing to make a blog comment, I’m remembering how ridiculous I thought it was the first time I read it. I honestly thought that these were a bunch of hucksters finding any reason to legitimize mooching off of others, taking drugs and living like bums. After my second reading, I took it far more seriously. I saw Debord and Jorn trying to speak to a truth against a society who in most cases, had no idea they existed, and for those who acknowledged them in the theoretical community, they most likely discredited their efforts. It sounds as if they couldn’t back up their claims with the kind of experimentation and documentation to legitimize their theories into something credible and valued amongst their peers. It had to be a challenge to have these sincere concepts and beliefs, set up with methods for measuring these theories and then to have them fall apart due to sloppy fact gathering practices and science that could not be reproduced.

Now that I am revisiting the material, I have an even deeper appreciation for their efforts. I think that what Debord and Jorn were driving at is especially important as Western Civilization advances. The maps that they were creating were about establishing networks to reaffirm and strengthen the important part of community that develops identity and unity. Unfortunately, the kind of map that was readily available to the public then emphasized the city space that was made for consumption, to keep a machine of consumption fed. Those maps had no interest in the people who were nurturing the machine, the middle class worker. Ultimately, where have we landed? Technology has grown at such a rate, and we have fallen under its spell, that we have unsurprisingly lost touch with the comfort and even the need to network intimately with one another. And in my opinion, communities/cities are losing their identities as a result. (San Jose itself has been mentioned many times as an example of this in class discussions.) As city leaders and developers try to expand communities and establish culturally clear centers, identifying the interests of their communities becomes difficult to target because groups are so insulated from one another. We have lost city centers and points of importance that are shared by all city dwellers, because we don’t all share a common bond due to the surge of our isolation. This was something that I think Debord and Jorn were possibly seeing as a sad future for humankind.

So, I have to give credit to Debord and Jorn for taking a stand and making an elaborate point about what may have seemed like a pot-induced message at the time. But, its content holds up over time and the wisdom threaded within it is worthy of our consideration in these times of rapid change.

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 [np1]