Following my previous blog which interrogated the significance of interactivity, virtuality and immersion to digital Holocaust memory, today, I explore another term that is often used to describe the digital - immateriality - and think about it in relation to recent commemorative events during the Covid-19 Pandemic, which of course could only take place online.
Last night, I was very honoured to present some initial ideas related to my research about digital Holocaust memory for The Cape Town Holocaust and Genocide Centre. In today's blog, I thought I would summarise some of my main arguments.
75 Years Later: Digitally Commemorating the Liberation of Bergen-Belsen This week - 15th April - was the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. Yet, unlike previous commemorations, the date was marked with online-only rather than physical events at the site. A few years ago, when I was writing my last book Cinematic Intermedialities and Contemporary Holocaust Memory, I went on a research trip to the Gedenkstaette Bergen-Belsen to explore their Here: Space of Memory project, a collaboration with the SPECS Research Group in Barcelona. The audio-visual installation stood in a box at the Anne-Frank-Platz in the Memorial's ground from October 28th 2012 until February 2014. A short trailer by SPECs shows the original installation here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1JydZqXOI8&w=560&h=315 The installation's content continues to exist in an augmented-reality (AR) app on i-pads, which visitors can hire at the site. AR technology blends virtual reality (VR) content with images of the lived-world environment. This is particularly effective at Bergen-Belsen because the typhoid outbreak in 1945 meant that the camp's structures had to be destroyed. There are few physical remains of the site - unlike Auschwitz I and other well-visited concentration camp memorials. Photograph of Victoria Grace-Walden engaging with the Here: Spaces of Memory Project on site. [...]
How naming this project's social media profiles provided a 'researchable' moment.
Abstract As more Holocaust memorial and educational organizations engage with digital technologies, the notion of virtual Holocaust memory has come to the fore. However, while this term is generally used simply to describe digital projects, this paper seeks to re-evaluate the specificity of virtuality and its relationship to memory through the thinking of Gilles Deleuze and Henri Bergson in order to consider how both digital and non-digital memory projects related to the Holocaust might be described as drawing attention to the virtuality of memory because they bring us into critical interstitial spaces between multiple layers of pasts and present in embodied ways that encourage us to consciously recognize the movements towards temporal planes which characterize memory. After reviewing the philosophies of Deleuze and Bergson in light of collaborative Holocaust memory, this article considers a range of digital and physical memorials to assess where we might find examples of virtual Holocaust memory today. I propose that we should see the virtual as a methodology – a particular form of memory practice – rather than a medium. Access the full article here.
Abstract This book explores the growing trend of intermediality in cinematic representations of the Holocaust. It turns to the in-betweens that characterise the cinematic experience to discover how the different elements involved in film and its viewing collaborate to produce Holocaust memory. Cinematic Intermedialities is a work of film-philosophy that places a number of different forms of screen media, such as films that reassemble archive footage, animations, apps and museum installations, in dialogue with the writing of Deleuze and Guattari, art critic-cum-philosopher Georges Didi-Huberman and film phenomenologies. The result is a careful and unique examination of how Holocaust memory can emerge from the relationship between different media, objects and bodies during the film experience. This work challenges the existing concentration on representation in writing about Holocaust films, turning instead to the materials of screen works and the spectatorial experience to highlight the powerful contribution of the cinematic to Holocaust memory. The book can be ordered for your institution's library here.
Originally published in Frames Cinema Journal Introduction Much of the discourse about the ethics of Holocaust representation considers it a sacred event that imposes representational limits. Survivors are often considered “authorities” of Holocaust memory. However, Alasdair Richardson defines the Holocaust as an event “on the edge of living memory”: soon there will be no first-hand witnesses to share their stories.[1] When the last survivor dies, the responsibility to remember will be entirely passed onto a new generation who cannot provide first-hand accounts of events; they did not literally witness this tragic past, but are called to “bear witness” in a more abstract sense as they remember the Holocaust through memorials, education and other media.[2] While debates about the “appropriateness” of Holocaust representation have long-existed, the recent surge in online engagement with it complicates issues further and has led to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) launching social media guidelines for educators.[3] Young people are particularly prevalent users of social media, thus it is not surprising that they might turn to this format to remember the Holocaust. The theme of this issue is conflicting images/ contested realities, and much of the youth-produced material relating to the Holocaust online has been [...]
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Landecker Digital Memory Lab
University of Sussex
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Brighton and Hove
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LandeckerDigitalMemoryLab@sussex.ac.uk
Contact
Landecker Digital Memory Lab
University of Sussex
Falmer Campus
Brighton and Hove
East Sussex
BN1 9RH
LandeckerDigitalMemoryLab@sussex.ac.uk
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