The Memory of Place: A Phenomenology of the Uncanny

1. Between Memory and Imagination

C hapt e r O n e ................................... between memory and imagination My memories begin with my second or third year. I recall the vicarage , the garden, the laundry house, the church, the castle, the Falls, the small castle of Worth, and the sexton’s farm. These are nothing but islands of memory afloat in a sea of vagueness, each by itself, apparently with no connection between them. —Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections “In the memory,” so writes Augustine, “everything is preserved separately, according to its category. Each is admitted through its own special entrance” (1961, 214). If our faith in memory’s ability to preserve events in a discrete manner, as Augustine suggests, has diminished, then there is much to be said for the notion of memory as being essentially spatial. While Augustine’s notion of memory as being like “a great field or a spacious palace, a storehouse for countless images of all kinds” (214), may have been replaced by virtual spaces and electronic servers, we nevertheless expect memory to occupy a “place.” But is there anything inherent in the content of memory that generates a spatial structure? Do my memories “encircle” one another, some falling into a less present “zone” than others? Similarly, do some memories remain “dormant,” awaiting their moment of resuscitation? Implicit in the notion of memory as being stored for retrieval is the suggestion of continuity. Along with the familiar image of memory as a storehouse is the idea that memory remains motionless while the object itself is not being remembered. Yet motionlessness does not, of course, mean transparency . Even Augustine will admit that the storehouse becomes dusty, concealed , and submerged with confused memories, stating suggestively that “some [things] are forthcoming only after a delay, as though they were being brought out from some inner hiding place” (1961, 214). The hiding place in 46 from place to memory which memory recedes testifies to the significance and power of preservation: a power that continues to haunt both memory and place. In this chapter, I will assess the status of memory as an experience preserved in time. The focus on the preservation of memory coincides with the broader emphasis on the spatiality of memory. As such, in beginning to think about the experience of memory in time, we will be in a position to gauge how space and place interact, coexist, and contribute to the formation of individual memory and collective memory. I shall have more to say below on episodic or autobiographical memory, in contrast to habitual memory, as involving a particular mode of spatiality. At this stage, however, all we need to note is how episodic memory is prima facie compelled to negotiate with an image that allows the past to be articulated. Can this relation between memory and its image be trusted? On the one hand, as remembering agents, we are inclined to speak in such a way of having a “picture” of things in the world as the content of memory. Sometimes, I will say to myself how I can “still see the dashboard.” Later on, I might be prepared to say I can “still smell the leather interior,” and even that I can “still feel the touch of the steering wheel.” Images, sensations, and haptic encounters persist. On the other hand, there is clearly a difference between being in a place and remembering that place. The kinesthetic, cognitive, and affective dimensions of recall delineate a division between perception and recollection. To speak of a memory-image means questioning how the image relates to the past. An image emerges: The “feel” of the steering wheel presses down, the sight of the dashboard appears, as though reframed in its original locality . Suddenly I have “returned” to the childhood garage in which my father’s car was housed. At the same time, the return is also virtual: in effect, a concurrent blending of presence and absence. In imagining myself being in a place, I join a past experience with a playful reworking of that past in the present. Because of this overlapping between remembering and imagining , the relationship between memory and its mental image becomes a foreground issue. Pursuing this relationship will mean confronting, first, the possibility, and second, limits of a phenomenology of memory. In this chapter, I will begin with an account of the phenomenology of memory before moving on to a preliminary investigation of the structure of place memory. In this way, the purpose of this chapter is to serve as a...