Memory

The museum where I volunteer, the Austin Museum of Art (downtown), recently got a new exhibition: "The Lining of Forgetting: Internal and External Memory in Art." Sounds very cerebral, right?

We had our docent training last Friday, where the curator, Xandra Eden, came to speak about the show. The whole exhibit is comprised of works of art by artists whose pieces are influenced by the idea of memory - what it is, how we create and preserve memories, what happens to them as we age, and what our modern reliance upon technology (particularly as a storage device) does to our memories. It is a fantastic exhibit that really highlights something that I have taken a strong interest in lately - the idea that science and art can co-exist and influence one another in a major way.

At first glance, I thought this show would be especially difficult to make "accessible" to the everyday museum visitor. Perhaps people would not really be receptive to such a metaphysical discussion. Perhaps the show would go far, far over school-aged kids' heads. Perhaps visitors would find boring a discussion teetering between the brain and the brush (or picture, or sculpture, whatever).

Perhaps I don't have enough faith in the everyday museum visitor!

After our brainstorming session today, I discovered how positively rife with potential this exhibit is. We all have memories, and we interact with them daily, whether it is by choice or not. We have our private, insular memories, and we have shared experiences. We have cultural memories as certain ethnic groups, as a country, as a specific religion. We have muscle memory in our bodies that allow us to repeat, without much effort, monumental tasks such as walking or riding a bike. Memories are everywhere.

I really like the idea that one of the docents brought up - the idea that we can never truly look at something new in a fresh way. In other words, you might come across a new kind of car you have never seen before, but it's not entirely foreign to you. Maybe its shape reminds you of an animal, or its colour is that of your parents' car from your childhood. Maybe the hubcaps remind you of that great restaurant in New Orleans where they cook burgers under old hubcaps. Suddenly, this new car is not so new to you. Our memories constantly influence what we see, and how we perceive those things.

I also like the idea that the choices that artists make (either in their media, colour choices, placement of objects, shadowing, etc.) greatly affect what our personal experience is with their art. Is all art propaganda in that respect? Are artists capable of pulling us along, and guiding us into feeling a certain way about whatever the subject is, or do we always bring our own eyes and opinions to the experience, as well as our own memories?

One of the pieces that really made an impact on me is a series of old-school-looking slides, flipping by on a projector aimed at the last wall as you walk out of the galleries. In every slide is an outdoor shot, with the artist placing his thumb squarely over the sun in order to block it out. The artist based his work on a technique invented by Galileo, who would use his thumb to block out the sun (the known) in order to explore other celestial bodies in the sky (the unknown). The idea is that, in order to make room for more memories and more knowledge (the unknown), sometimes, we have to block out old information (the known). It seems a very poetic way to end the show, and leaves me pondering what I will remember about today, and what I will forget.