[-empyre-] November 2007 on -empyre- : Memory Errors in theTechnosphere: Art, Accident, Archive

[Norie Neumark]

Hey Andrew,
great to have a conversation with someone in our Timezone!

On 09/11/2007, at 10:19 AM, andrew burrell wrote:

> On Nov 6, 2007 11:03 AM, Norie Neumark <norie5 at mac.com> wrote:
>> And then there are the memories we can have of a place we've never
>> been to, but remember through the media...
>
> and on the level of the individual (that is of the 'I' doing the
> remembering) i have to wonder if there is any substantial difference
> between a memory formed through an intermediate media or through
> direct contact with the actual 'thing' being remembered. I have strong
> memories of my great grandmother, though i only ever knew her through
> the letters and cards i received from her for christmas and birthdays
> (memory mediated by the royal mail). likewise, i grew up hearing
> stories told by my grandparents and father of the town from where they
> had emigrated long before my birth. when i first went to this town at
> the age of 21 i was able to navigate it from the memories i had formed
> of this place without ever having been there before (memory mediated
> by the memory of another). i also have strong memories of places,
> encounters and discoveries in azeroth (memory mediated by mmorpg), and
> while i have spent much time trying to discern if a memory of a place
> in 'world of warcraft' is (on a personal level) any different from a
> memory i have of a place i went on holiday in 1995 (for example), i
> keep coming back to the same conclusion, that a memory is a memory and
> no matter how one is formed the ultimate mediator will be an
> individuals 'perceptive filtering' and the circumstances and triggers
> for recall.

If a memory comes from someone else's perceptive filtering but is now
your own memory, there feels like some sort of weird lag there,  
between their
perception and your perception... Do you experience that lag when you  
encounter
the place you remembered through their memories? Do your own,new  
perceptive encounters with
that place refilter and alter those acquired memories?

norie