PROOF Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments viii Notes on Contributors x Technologies of Memory in the Arts: An Introduction 1 Liedeke Plate and Anneke Smelik Part I Mediating Memories Introduction: Mediating Memories 15 Liedeke Plate and Anneke Smelik 1 Tourists of History: Souvenirs, Architecture and the Kitschification of Memory 18 Marita Sturken 2 Minimalism, Memory and the Reflection of Absence 36 Wouter Weijers 3 The Virtuality of Time: Memory in Science Fiction Films 52 Anneke Smelik Part II Memory/Counter-memory Introduction: Memory/Counter-memory 71 Liedeke Plate and Anneke Smelik 4 The Astonishing Return of Blake and Mortimer: Francophone Fantasies of Britain as Imperial Power and Retrospective Rewritings 74 Ann Miller 5 Writing Back Together: The Hidden Memories of Rochester and Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea 86 Nagihan Haliloglu 6 Liquid Memories: Women’s Rewriting in the Present 100 Liedeke Plate v March 18, 2009 19:28 MAC/TEEM Page-v 9780230_575677_01_prexii PROOF vi Contents Part III Recalling the Past Introduction: Recalling the Past 117 Liedeke Plate and Anneke Smelik 7 The Matter and Meaning of Childhood through Objects 120 Elizabeth Wood 8 The Force of Recalling: Pain in Visual Arts 132 Marta Zarzycka 9 Photographs that Forget: Contemporary Recyclings of the Hitler-Hoffmann Rednerposen 150 Frances Guerin Part IV Unsettling History Introduction: Unsettling History 169 Liedeke Plate and Anneke Smelik 10 Facing Forward with Found Footage: Displacing Colonial Footage in Mother Dao and the Work of Fiona Tan 172 Julia Noordegraaf 11 Documentaries and Mediated Popular Histories: Shaping Memories and Images of Slovenia’s past 188 Maruša Pušnik 12 Impossible Histories: Violence, Identity, and Memory in Colombian Visual Arts 203 Marta Cabrera Bibliography 216 Index 232 March 18, 2009 19:28 MAC/TEEM Page-vi 9780230_575677_01_prexii PROOF 1 Tourists of History: Souvenirs, Architecture and the Kitschification of Memory Marita Sturken Technologies of memory take many forms, from photographs to archi- tectural designs, from docudramas to memorials, from talismans to souvenirs, from diaries to the body itself. The aesthetic styles and designs of these memory technologies can span a broad range of taste categories and stylistic intents, from the sentimental object of loss and mourning to the angry political statement of an AIDS quilt panel. Such distinctions of taste are, of course, deeply tied to class-based notions of what constitutes appropriate taste in relation to memory and loss. They are also crucial to understanding the relationship of memory and politics. It is the case that the aesthetics and forms of cultural memory both enable and limit the memories that circulate through them. The aesthetics of technologies of memory are thus deeply political. In this essay, I examine a trend in the kitschification of memory that has emerged in American culture over the past twenty years, and what it indicates about particular narratives of innocence and a consumer cul- ture of comfort in the United States. I am interested in the political implications of kitsch forms of remembering and how an aesthetic of reenactment, which is a key factor of kitsch remembering, enables cer- tain kinds of memory narratives and limits others. Is a particular kind of kitsch aesthetics of memory emerging at this moment in history – a his- torical time framed by the events of the fall of the Berlin Wall, 9/11, and the war in Iraq? I would like to look specifically at the way that the mem- ory of 9/11 is being encoded into a particular set of aesthetics of kitsch and re-enactment at Ground Zero in New York City. Such a set of aes- thetics emerged in the context of a particularly troubling and extreme moment in American political history, when the stakes in reproducing notions of innocence were very high in the United States. 18 March 18, 2009 19:30 MAC/TEEM Page-18 9780230_575677_04_cha01 PROOF Souvenirs, Architecture and the Kitschification of Memory 19 9/11 souvenirs My story begins with two souvenirs. The first is a plastic snow globe pencil holder that contains a miniature of the twin towers of the World Trade Center standing next to an oversized St. Paul’s Chapel with a police car and a fire truck sitting before it (Figure 1.1). When the globe is shaken, bright moons and stars float around the towers. It is labelled, ‘World Trade Center 1973–2001’. I purchased it from an illegal street vendor selling wares at a temporary table next to Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan. My second souvenir is a teddy bear that wears a FDNY firefighter’s uniform, which is sold as part of a broad (legal) consumer network related to the New York City Fire Department (Figure 1.2). The WTC snow globe is not only an object of tourism but is also an object of memory that depicts the insulated world of the US nation in the small bubble-like worlds of its globe. We look into the small world of a snow globe as if from a god-like position. The effect of the miniature Figure 1.1 World Trade Center memorial snow globe Marita Sturken March 18, 2009 19:30 MAC/TEEM Page-19 9780230_575677_04_cha01 PROOF 20 Technologies of Memory in the Arts is to offer a sense of containment and, in this case, to narrate particular stories about the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11. The snow globe’s miniature world is not simply small, but animated. When shaken, it comes alive with the movement of moons and stars, offering a kind of celebratory flurry that then settles back again. This snow globe also has a very particular relationship to time. It notes the dates of the ‘life span’ of a building, the World Trade Cen- ter, and captures it in a mystical temporal moment – the towers remain Figure 1.2 Fire Department of New York teddy bear Marita Sturken March 18, 2009 19:30 MAC/TEEM Page-20 9780230_575677_04_cha01 PROOF Souvenirs, Architecture and the Kitschification of Memory 21 standing although the emergency vehicles that signal the towers’ demise are already present. Time-wise, a snow globe is itself an object of time that one is encouraged to ‘visit’ on a regular basis, absentmindedly giv- ing it a shake in a moment of distraction. Yet, a snow globe also offers a sense of time as a return – one shakes the globe, but it always returns back to the landscape before the snow flurry. I see this snow globe not simply as an object of kitsch, but as an object that embodies the way that kitsch can produce a sense of innocence and comfort. The comfort of the snow globe derives in part from this expectation that it returns each time to its original state. The FDNY teddy bear is an example of the broader role that teddy bears have played in the kitschification of memory and the predom- inance of a culture of comfort in the United States. The ubiquity of teddy bears in New York City after 9/11 brought the national trend of giving teddy bears to the grieving and the sick to unusual proportions. Ever since the early years of the AIDS crisis, when people began to give teddy bears to people who were ill with AIDS, the teddy bear has been increasingly deployed as a commodity of grief. This recent consumerism of comfort teddy bears is aimed at adult consumers, not children, and carries with it the inevitable effect of infantilization – teddy bears have proliferated in the comfort culture of breast cancer advocacy and at sites like the Oklahoma City National Memorial. This FDNY teddy bear is an object of memory – it is a reminder that several hundred New York City firefighters lost their lives on 9/11, and that they left behind bereaved families and colleagues. It is also an object that can aid in screening out many other stories of 9/11 that have been overshadowed by the sancti- fication of the New York City firefighters – or the brutal truth that it was lack of preparation that fated them, rather than sheer heroism. A teddy bear is a primary object of comfort culture. It is a tactile object – one is supposed to hold it in order for it to convey its fully resonant meaning. In the aftermath of 9/11, the power awarded the teddy bear to provide comfort was extraordinary – as early as the next day, the Salvation Army handed out teddy bears to people returning to the city. Importantly, the teddy bear promises comfort, not necessarily the comfort that things will be better, but the comfort that one will feel better. Tourists of history The snow globe and the teddy bear are emblematic of the ways that American culture processes and engages with loss, and of the economic networks that support the consumerism of American kitsch. They are March 18, 2009 19:30 MAC/TEEM Page-21 9780230_575677_04_cha01 PROOF 22 Technologies of Memory in the Arts both mass-produced and labelled ‘Made in China’. They are thus pro- duced out of the elaborate global economic networks that manufacture the objects of American patriotism (including the vast majority of small American flags, which are made in Korea and China). Their produc- tion of American innocence is the product of low-level, lowly paid, outsourced labour. The snow globe and the teddy bear are both objects that participate in what I call the tourism of history; they form part of the broad array of cultural practices that reveal the deep investment in the concept of innocence in American culture. The tourist is a figure who embodies a detached and innocent pose.