Photography, Painting and Memory

People enjoy the behavior of recording things. Nowadays, people use different ways to record things which surround them. These things might be the simple item like the food they just eat, the place they just arrive, or the afternoon sky with beautiful winds. All these is about the clips of someone’s life. It is about memory. Or I shall say ‘making the memory stay alive.’ Even individuals some time just record things for fun,  they still finish the process of catching memory. According Oxford Dictionary, ‘Memory’, this word, means as: ‘The faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information’ or ‘The length of time over which a person or event continues to be remembered’. Then what ‘Record’ is? -- ‘Convert (sound or a performance) into a permanent form for subsequent reproduction or broadcast’. It is interesting that even there is a huge difference between ‘Memory’ and ‘Record’, or we can probably say, they are totally different things in some case, there are still links and relationships between two of them. Memory is an untouchable thing which bases on individuals mind. But we record things to make these specific person or story become a ‘Memory’. In this case, the ‘Memory’ which been recorded becomes not only a unique thing which can only be held by one person but a document which can be shared with others. I call it ‘Document the memory’. People have a lot of ways to document the memory. I choose photography and painting to analyze.

We know that the most popular way of recording is ‘using camera’ -- Taking pictures or recording videos. Because of the convenience which cameras have, taking photos become the easiest way which almost everyone can handle them. Being the most popular tools of documenting the memory. What is Photography?

‘Photography is the science, art and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film.

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Photography is employed in many fields of science, manufacturing (e.g., photo-lithography) and business, as well as its more direct uses for art, film and video production, recreational purposes, hobby, and mass communication.’(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography)

There is the definition of photography in Wikipedia. According to this explanation we know that photography is a motion which involves lots of technology in a various areas. Photography now is divided into two different part -- Fine Art Photography and Documentary Photography. In the art history, lots of artists had few negative point of view on photography. They thought that photography was too mechanical and the camera just does a kind of reproduction of the original things. And the others worried about that the discovery of photography would be the end of painting. But why did people invent photography?  Because they want to record something without using pencils and brushes. In my point of view, at the very beginning, both painting and photography were more like the tool of recording than the behavior of art making. Photography was also simply a way to make a document. The painting actually shared the same process with photography. In ancient time, when people do not even have the ability to read. They drew things on the stone to record what they saw. During that time, painting could not be a kind of art as well-- at least, people who lived in that period did not think they were making art works. Or I better say, people, in that period, did not have that sense of intention to make an art project. They painting for recording. Even in modern times, painters painted portraits to record people’s appearance. But the discovery of photography brings the great challenge to painting history. The new technology replaced the function of recording which painting usually did and had since several years ago. People once thought ‘Painting is dead’ because photography becomes a more simple, easier way to record. But, in fact, it is photography that made the great evolution on painting history. Because of this, painting turned into a new level. Painting was no longer limited to mechanical document than discovered new ways to handle the image. Abstract art and Impressionism appeared. Even there was such a great evolution happened in painting history, in my opinion, Painting still has the function of recording after the discovery of photography. It starts to record individuals’ mind instead of simply the outfit of an object.

How does painting change? Painting becomes more emotional, and more related  memory. This makes me think how memory works.Researching into memory. I found lots of experts, including psychologists and philosophers, done researches in this area. Philosopher Henri Bergson defines this issue into ‘the relationship between the reality of spirit and the reality of matter.’ (Matter and Memory. 2004) Memory is a kind of matter that between things and feelings, objective and subjective. All the memory which individuals hold comes from the real world. They are objective. However, at the same time, memory based on human beings. Every piece of thought which is held by human beings has some sort of subjectivity. In this case, the process of memory will be more similar to paintings’. In the modern age. People who live in this Information era will receive tons of random information throughout the whole day. But even the greatest computer can not take every information which is given to it. That is why people will forget things. Memory is a behavior which has a kind of selectivity. Everybody has free-will to choose what they want to remember. The process of memory is like the behavior which we called ‘pick-up’. The difference between individual’s consciousness or hobbies becomes one reason why different people will ‘pick-up’ different things to remember. But this behavior will not be 100% conscious. Memory is not simply a ‘thing’, but a complicated process that happen in human’s existence. Memory can not exist when people’s body do not exist. Researching in the way how memory works, I think memory now becomes a behavior, or in a way, a kind of creation which done by individuals.  

‘If the image of a big plate of fried eggs and bacon popped into your mind, you didn't dredge it up from some out-of-the-way neural alleyway. Instead, that memory was the result of an incredibly complex constructive power -- one that each of us possesses -- that reassembled disparate memory impressions from a web-like pattern of cells scattered throughout the brain. ’(http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/human-memory.htm)

Those words which I get, on the internet, from the report of Ph.D. student Richard C. Mohs, made me believe that our memory is a combination of storing and recreation that automatically happens in human’s brain.

When people create or paint an image, they recall what they already have firstly, at the same time, they throw away useless information. They pick up the part which is interesting , then rethink these part and turn them into a kind of creation. Painting from memory gives people an opportunity to seeking inside themselves. Throughout this process, people develop themselves and view the world in a new way. Philip Guston, who is the first generation of abstract artists, said that: ‘The painting is not on a surface, but on a planet which is imagined. It moves in a mind. It is not there physically at all. It is an illusion, a piece of magic.’ (Reading Landscape.) This famous artist mentioned imagination, mind, and illusion. These words which relate to painting itself make me think of the mean of painting. Where dose ‘Painting’ actually come from? Or how will people make paintings? This is not a question which will have several ways to answer. I believe that painting is far more than an image which places on a piece of paper, painting is more like a complicated process, and this process involves behaviors, practices, emotion, and memories. Painting involves a unique emotional process from its creator. It is not simply a tool to record existing objects, but a creation resulting from an information processing which is done by human beings. When creators are painting or thinking about the plan of their creation, they probably go through a process of seeking inside themselves. Then memory becomes an important part of the art making process. I can say that most of the paintings, in some case, are reflections of human mind. This can be explained in several ways. The feeling that we feel familiar with someone or something, which can be an emotion support for painting, come from memory. Even the way that painters use brushes when they are painting involves the issue of memory function. Because people learn how to use brushes through the observation of other paintings, and this knowledge became a kind of memory immediately. Then painters use this part of memory as a skill to create images. But in addition to this, in my point of view, the most important function of human’s memory is helping creators get inspiration. Nowadays lots of painters make their works which relate to memory. In fact, almost everyone carries the specific feeling of what they have remembered. It might relate to very specific things that they remembered. Creators get inspiration from the feeling. Then this emotion which is created from this feelings shows a strong influence on painting.

Back to photography. ‘Photography is memory.’ I agree with that. I think that photography is a carrier which can carry out people’s memory. Every piece of a photograph is a storage of a certain memory. Once people press the shutter, the moment, image, or story which they just caught become a piece of memory. At least, the time-line they just took has gone and will not come back. But in the picture, the particular moment become a unique, permanent memory. This memory has been documented. But there s certainly a difference between photography and memory. First of all, photography is a human behavior that requires human intention. People take photos from outside because they consciously choose to do. Comparing with this, the process of memory happens more complicate. Sometimes people do not mean to remember somethings. For example, people maybe do not wanna to remember horrible things. But after they watched a horror movie, they can actually remember the atmosphere and the scene which are the most scared of them. Memory is much more complicated than photography. ‘Photography is memory.’, but, ‘Memory is not photography.’ Secondly, memory will go. But photograph only can be destroyed. People will forget things, at least, when people die, the memory which is carried in that one’s mind will go forever. But photographs are document that make things stay. So in this case, photography can do things that individuals’ memory can not reach. Photography bring memory to people. As a tool of recording, photography provides lots of opportunities to men-kind. Artist Dan Graham had a kind of performance project. He put a camera on the different area of his body and catch the landscape about his surrounding. It is quite interesting. In my point of view, I feel it is more like that the camera and photographs allow people to see what they can not get with their eyes. These pictures provide the images which are seen by different place of human body to people themselves. More than this, photography also allows people to reach things that beyond their existing time-line. And throughout these photographs, we are all able to learn history. Throughout the photography, people’s memory start to mix together.

Through all the function that photographs have. I think for painting, photographs become a kind of intermediary between memory and painting. Lots of painter use memory to help them make art works. But memory is unique. Memory is an abstract concept, it will not come out from somebody’s mind. But in another way,   photographs bring people the opportunity that they can reflect the memory and make it visible. Or the photograph will become the point that can remind people about the memory about certain things. It becomes a perfect reference for painting. At he same time, any pieces of work that come out from memory can not be the memory itself. So I think, memory for painting, in this case, is more like a reference which is quite familiar with the other kinds of references like photographs. However, being different from the reference like photographs, which is objective, unchangeable, and accurate, memory is more subjective. Memory will not exist when human’s body does not exist. At the same time, human itself is a complicated combination of subjectivity instead of an unconsciousness machine. Memory itself comes from an objective society, but what are truly objective is things and matter which we get. People will bring subjectivity into it when they turn that information to memory. Then individual will bring their own imagination and understanding to their memory. And those flexible, subjective element will bring them inspiration.

I think there are strong, complicated relationship between memory, photography and painting. In some case they are similar. And in some parts of them they probably share the same paths and same functions. But it is clearly that memory, photography and painting are unique issues for each of themselves. They are independent. But because of those similar points, they can help each other and work with each other. And for the next step I think I will spend more time to research how will different culture and style effect painting. And how I can use these different elements to help my paintings.