Memory and the Everyday life in Fertile Memories

“The philosopher Leibniz showed that the world is made up of series which are composed and which coverage in a very regular way, according to ordinary laws. However the series and the sections are only apparent to us only in small sections, and in a disrupted or mixed up order, so that we believe in breaks, disparities and discrepancies as in things that are out of ordinary.” (Cinema 2, pg.14) Cinema has mainly been the action-image spectacle of extraordinary because of its use of breaks and discrepancies in recreation of real life. It has primarily depicted events discretely. However some filmmakers such as Ozu, and Michel khleifi in the case of The Fertile Memories (1980) have tried against that by raising the emphasis on the mundane everyday banality, along with using strategic cinematic techniques: Camera movements are minimum, and mainly in the form of slow panning shots. Close-ups and deep depth of field have been constantly used. Dissolves are abandoned in order to make room for the simple cut. Empty spaces (both exterior and interior) and silent moments; occupy a good amount of screen time. The montage is somewhat rhythmic with low tempo, creating a certain temporal calmness.

Also in search of a more continuous recollection, by a particular way of gluing the sound to image, Khleifi has tried in reducing the affect of discreteness of film. The sound often continues to the next shot, be it an absolutely different environment. Or sometimes what seems to be a voice over narration becomes the actual onscreen sound of the shot that follows. This perhaps has been an attempt in reproducing the “pure” memory. Deleuze writes on Bergson’s notion of memory: “On one hand the following moment always contains, over and above the proceeding one, the memory the latter has left it; on the other hand, the two moments contract or condense into each other since one has not yet disappeared when another appears. “ (Bergsonism, pg. 51) In The Fertile Memories, sound acts on a higher level, as a linkage that merges the images together. In overall, reproducing memory in a sense that each segment would contain the proceeding one, and would not necessarily disappear with the arrival of a segment that follows.

Therefore considering khleifi’s way of editing in creating a sense closer to pure memory, the importance given to the everyday banality, and also the singularity of the separate narrations of the two women, he’s approach to history can be viewed as a genealogical one. By showing the everyday life, Khleifi “reveals disparity and dispersions” of the identity of the women, which would have regularly been cut out.


References:
• Deleuze, Gilles. (1991). “Memory as Virtual Coexistence.” Bergsonism. New York: Zone Books.
• Deleuze, Gilles (1989). “Beyond the movement image.” Cinema 2 : The Time-Image. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Foucault, Michel (1984). “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.” The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon Books

Soundprints

In Soundprints a group of people whom are given wireless headphones and binaural microphones, get to walk together in the city. One of the prerequisites of the walk is the collective relation between individuals in the group. The wireless range of the equipment, limits each member to maintain certain proximity with the fellow walker. Therefore each member would determine his/her routes based on both sonic information that s/he receives from the fellow walker, and also a visual sense of closeness with the group. This makes the group an entity by itself that moves within the space, a whole (“le Tout”); a whole that transforms with the space, rather than translate in the space. An invisible qualitatively changing whole, rather than simply a shifting of positions in the space.

I think it would be appropriate at this stage to talk about the concept of multiplicity developed by Henri Bergson and Edmund Husserul; a concept which ought not to be confused with the traditional notion of multiple where there is a direct division between one and multiple. Bergsonian multiplicity, seeks to move away from this traditional division by conceiving a unity immanent to the system. To better understand the notion of multiplicity it is necessary to discuss its two types: quantitative multiplicity and qualitative multiplicity. A simple example for a quantitative multiplicity would be what Bergson supplies: a flock of sheep. They are all the same and of the same particularity of being sheep (homogenous), however each has a distinguishable singularity and spatial position. This spatial dispersion enables us to enumerate them, and sum them up into a quantitative whole.

On the other hand there is as well a qualitative multiplicity; a multiplicity that regards the qualities of different heterogeneous elements. Since this is harder to grasp I will provide two different examples, each to highlight a different aspect of a qualitative multiplicity. The first is the example of sympathy. When we sympathize we put ourselves in the place of others. In Time and Free Will Bergson explains in detail how sympathy consists of “transition from repugnance to fear, from fear to sympathy, and from sympathy itself to humility.” (Time and Free Will, pp. 18-19) Therefore sympathy consists of heterogeneity of feelings, which are continues with one another, and yet cannot be juxtaposed or said that they negate one another. Each feeling is heterogeneous to another, yet absolutely necessary to complete one another. The second example is the example of the water and oil, which is to underline movement within the multiplicity, and the relation of each heterogeneous element with each other and the whole. Imagine a drop of oil inside a bowl of water. The ‘water and oil’ is a qualitative multiplicity, since both of them are heterogeneous to one another, and perhaps even oppositional considering their reluctance to mix. Each has different viscosity and property, however they hold a continuous relation, and are in constant perturbation of one another, since they both have a kind of liquid quality. To think of the water and oil as a qualitative multiplicity is also to be able to examine them as one whole entity. No matter how distinct the water and oil are from each other, it would be a challenge to draw their boundaries with one another. So even though they are heterogeneous, they are as well one. In this context to study the movement of the oil in the water, would be to regard the transformation of water-oil. In other words when the oil moves from one point to another, it is not just the oil that is shifting its position in space, rather the whole multiplicity is going through a transformation. Each molecule of the water has to also change within a given duration, in order for the oil to move. Therefore in a qualitative multiplicity rather than translation of particulars, we have transformation of the whole (which consist of heterogeneous singulars.)

To think of the group as a Whole, is to think of the space as part of the group as well. To differentiate between body and space, is to consider their boundaries with each other. The only thing that separates our body from the space is our skin. Alan Watts writes: “although our bodies are bounded with skin, and we can differentiate between outside and inside, they cannot exist except in a certain kind of natural environment. So to describe myself in a scientific way, I must also describe my surroundings, which is a clumsy way getting around to the realization that you are the entire universe. However we do not normally feel that way because we have constructed in thought an abstract idea of our self." (The Book, Chapter 1) Therefore the question of our body-space multiplicity being heterogeneous is directly related to our perception of ourselves. If we remove the idea of self (or perhaps selves) from the context of the body then, as Watts mentions, the space-body boundary becomes a gray area that would result in a topological body that is in direct relation with the space. So as long as the notion of self and the possessive body is removed, the group (including land, space, exchanged sounds, and time) can be thought of as a qualitative multiplicity. In other words each component of the Whole can be considered a separate topological element that would hold a heterogeneity with others. However looking at the Whole or the multiplicity of these components they can only be functioning in unity once there exist a correct relation between one another.

In Soundprints, sound operates towards removing this idea of self. Erin Manning writes:
If my body is created through my movement toward you, there is no “self” to refer back to, only a proliferation of vectors of intensity that emerge through contact. This contact is not an end point; it is not a moment of arrival where something like two bodies “meeting” happens. It is far beyond tact. Rather, it is a signaling of a reaching that arrives, momentarily, only to have been arrived at, relationally, again. (Politics of Touch. pp 136)
Sound creates this contact. It forms the desire of reaching toward. But at the same time it prevents the moment of arrival. The bodies never meet. Sound holds the bodies in their potentiality. It creates bodies that are always beyond them-selves. (Politics of Touch. pp 136.) Sound becomes the ‘of body’ and ‘of space’ hybrid that unite different bodies, space, and time. It brings together all heterogeneous elements towards forming a qualitative multiplicity – towards a Whole.

If the group (including land, space, exchanged sounds, and time) is thought of as one unity, then the notion of bodies navigating within the space becomes absurd. There would be no such a thing as navigation, because the navigator and the space to navigate in are one thing. They transform as a whole. They become as a whole. The movement of bodies in the space, becomes a dance with the space. A dance with the land, where the bodies become the land, and the land becomes the bodies. It would no longer be about locating. The desire to locate and seek the destination, is replaced by the desire to simply experience. That is why it becomes a dance. The purpose is not to reach the end of the choreography. In fact there is no purpose, there is only the desire to experience, to transform with the whole (land, body, sound, space, time, experience), to become.

References:
- Bergson, Henri. (1913). Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. New York: Dover Publications, INC.
- Deleuze, Gilles. (1991). Bergsonism. New York: Zone Books.
- Manning, Erin. (2006). Politics of Touch. Minnesota: University Of Minnesota Press.
- Watts, Alan. The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.
- (2008). Henri Bergson. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/