Jens Brockmeier on the narrative fabric of autobiographical memory; the elective affinity of film and memory (posted on 22/2/12)

Orson Welles, print screen from Wikipedia.

Jens Brockmeier is a Senior Scientist based at the Free University Berlin, with a background in psychology and philosophy. He also is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Manitoba, a Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Innsbruck, and a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Narrative Research of the University of East London.

This afternoon he gave a talk under the title The art of remembering and forgetting at Chelsea's lecture theatre about the narrative fabric of autobiographical memory and what gives narrative, visual, and performative artists privileged access in exploring it. In particular, he mentioned that 'the reason why we remember or forget is not in psychology, nor in neuroscience, but in narrative art'. Acknowledging that many contemporary artists use film in their research of autobiographic memories[1], he talked about films as forms of narrative[2].

Brockmeier divided his presentation in 3 chapters. The first one was called Remembering (a) film, the second one Filming memory and concluded with the last chapter of Films as remembering and forgetting.

Nikos Georgopoulos

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Notes
1. The killing maschine, installation, 2007. Jannet Cadiff & Burres Miler.
2. 'A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet', Orson Welles.