Memory work has an ethical as well as an historical dimension. I contributed the entry entitled memory work to Wikipedia. The catalyst for this layered image was Freud's influential paper (1901 [1914]) entitled Forgetting of Proper Names in Psychopathology of Everyday Life. In it Freud examined the psychological process of forgetting the name of the artist who painted the Orvieto ceiling when his conscious thinking process was abruptly interrupted by memories of the recent suicide of one of his patients who had an incurable sexual disorder. He forget Signorelli's proper name during this conversation with a stranger while traveling in Herzegovina. They had been discussing the Turks in Bosnia and Herzegovina when Freud's thoughts turned to contemporary [racist] beliefs surrounding the sexual moeurs of Turks who allegedly valued sexual pleasure over life itself. From there Freud thought of Death and Sexuality. As one theme interrupted and replaced the other, he associated the series Signorelli. Botticelli, Boltraffio, Trafoi and could not recollect the proper name.
This is significant to me as it reveals unchallenged western prejudices about the East at the turn of the century.
Layers include a .jpg of Renaissance artist Luca Signorelli's (1445 - 1523) masterpiece, the massive frescoes of the Last Judgment (1499-1503) in Orvieto Cathedral. The copyright on his work has expired since he passed away more than 70 years ago.
There is a topographical map of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a small iinsert of Freud's museum which is itself th subject of controversy as rrevealed in Derrida's book Archives Fever (1996). The uppermost layer is the diagram from the Freud's article explaining how he made a Freudian slip.
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mikescottnz-away for a momth 60 months ago | reply
Great idea in pictorial form