From Ashes to Diamonds

This article examines the making and makers of “memorial diamonds.” These are “natural” diamonds identical to gemstones found in nature but produced in laboratories with carbon sourced from genetic material (cremation ashes) or other objects of symbolic and emotional value. Threading corporality and objectified life forms, we examine the transformation from ashes to the “afterlife” of these “living” objects that are at once synthetic and organic. We ask, first, what material and affective properties distinguish synthetic diamonds from those extracted from nature? Second, how are these living and memorialized representations of inert substances – in continuity with bodily elements of the deceased – valued and mediated through “real” human, though artificially grown, natural objects? Drawing from research with the leading companies in the memorial diamond business in Switzerland and the United States, this article suggests that these diamonds’ singular connection to the human body offer a window into the transmutations between nature and the artificial, memory and material likeness, life and death.

Máquinas de la memoria: Emblemática y Semiótica

ABSTRACT: The relationship between word and image has been researched from different theoretical perspectives. The emblem, as a hybrid textual type, has been approached from the perspectives of iconography and epigraphy in the analysis of the variety of genres derived from the triplex model, like the heavily codified languages of mute emblems and baroque hieroglyphs. The rhetorical procedures and traditions involved in the production and reception of these symbolic machines utilize the exemplum and the allegory, going through the progymnasmata, as the main strategies in the connection of iconic and verbal representations. The purpose of this work is to describe the emblem from a semiotic point of view and explore the relationship between emblematics and the theatres of artificial memory as categories that allow the explanation of the complex interdependence between the visual and the verbal in its mnemotechnical function, where the effectiveness of the repertoire of symbol is built in museums of the imaginary. This takes the visual grammars of semiotics as well as the anthropology of writing as a starting point to propose a generative model of reading. KEYWORDS: Emblematics; Semiotics; Symbolism; Hieroglyph; Memory. RESUMEN: La relación entre palabra e imagen ha sido estudiada desde distintas perspectivas teóricas. En el caso del emblema, como tipo textual híbrido, se ha abordado desde la iconografía y la epigrafía en el análisis de la variedad de géneros derivados del modelo triplex, como los lenguajes altamente codificados de los emblemas mudos y los jeroglíficos barrocos. Los procedimientos retóricos y tradiciones implicados en la producción y recepción de estas máquinas simbólicas tienen como principales estrategias el exemplum y la alegoría pasando por los progymnásmata, en la conexión de representaciones icónicas y verbales. El propósito de este trabajo es caracterizar el emblema desde el punto de vista semiótico y explorar la relación entre la emblemática y los teatros de la memoria artificial como categorías que permiten explicar la compleja interdependencia de lo visual y lo verbal en su función mnemotécnica donde la eficacia de los repertorios de símbolos se erige en museos del imaginario. Lo anterior a partir de las gramáticas visuales de la semiótica y de la antropología de la escritura para proponer un modelo generativo de lectura. PALABRAS CLAVES: emblemática; semiótica; jeroglífico; memoria.

Do Cinema ao GIF: Apropriações e ressignificações da imagem no século XXI

Resumo: O artigo tem como objetivo compreender fenômenos comunicacionais a partir do conceito da midiatização observando apropriações visuais de cenas de filmes em gifs identificados nos meios digitais. A problemática dessas apropriações se forma a partir do momento em que a sociedade produz sentidos visuais e registra sensações e emoções individuais e compartilhadas nos meios digitais, compartilhando situações e emoções através de imagem em movimento e texto que poderão ser reproduzidos constantemente, da mesma forma que a indústria cinematográfica pretende a partir da construção de uma memória artificial. Nesse caso, analisa como as sociedades midiatizadas transformam meios como o cinema a fim de aprimorar suas formas de comunicação e, em outro aspecto, busca compreender como as ações de atores sociais criam sentidos visuais em gifs, contam histórias produzindo novas memórias e eternizam suas vivências cotidianas a partir de um dispositivo tentativo.Palavras-chave: Cinema. Gif. Apropriação. Imagem. Memória FROM CINEMA TO GIF: APPROPRIATIONS AND REFRAMINGS OF THE IMAGE IN THE XXI CENTURY Abstract: The article aims to understand digital communications from the concept of mediatization, observing visual appropriations of movie scenes in gifs identified in digital media. The problematic of these appropriations starts from the moment when society produces visual senses and records individual and shared feelings and emotions in digital media, sharing situations and emotions through the moving image and text that can be reproduced constantly, in the same way that film industry intends from the construction of an artificial memory. In this case, analyzes how mediatized societies transform media such as cinema, to improve their forms of communication and, in another aspect, seek to understand how actions of social actors create visual meanings in gifs, they tell stories producing new memories and eternalize their daily experiences from a tentative device.Keywords: Cinema. Gif. Appropriation. Image. Memory

The Artificial Memory of Mr. Polly: Memory Simulation in Databases and the Emergence of Knowledge

Human memory may be characterized by five dimensions: (1) large capacity; (2) associativity; (3) diversity of memory systems; (4) change over time; and (5) a unified memory experience. The organization and multidimensionality underlying memory can be represented with set theory. This offers a new mathematical perspective, which is the foundation for the cognitive memory architecture Ardemia. The authors present a relational database implementation of Ardemia that supports the creation of the artificial memory of Mr. Polly, the main character in H.G. Wells’s novel The History of Mr. Polly. In addition to the implementation of Mr. Polly’s artificial memory using TimeGlue, his memory is probed with a collection of everyday memory queries that are related to temporal and schema knowledge. The investigation of Mr. Polly’s knowledge suggests an alternative representation of schemas; rather than fixed structures or explicit associations, it is possible to model schemas as the results of the interaction between existing knowledge and remembering.

Re-enacting the past in TV news on war crime trials: A method for analysis of visual narratives in archival footage

This article provides a method for the analysis of the visual narratives present in the archival footage in programs of TV news, based on an analysis of TV news on war crime trials transmitted by Serbian TV stations. The archival footage in TV news presents specific claims as to an understanding of the trials, as it is assumed to present the ‘reality’ of war, re-enacting the past and eliciting viewers’ emotions. The author argues that the visual narratives emerging from the selection and editing of archival footage create specific meanings of the past, and provide a method for their analysis, applying social semiotic multimodal analysis and drawing on structural narrative analysis. The patterning of the visual narratives in the archival footage contributes to the creation of an artificial memory of war, signaling a particular version of the past within the preferred meaning of a TV news channel. The main advantage of this method is that it enables a systematic analysis of visual narratives in the archival footage, revealing the ideological work of sign-makers embedded in the visual structure.

Can memory erasure contribute to a virtuous tempering of emotions?

The paper deals with a perspective of Christian philosophy on artificial memory erasuse for psychotherapeutic purposes. Its central question is whether a safe and reliable technology of memory erasure, once it is available, would be acceptable from a Christian ethics point of view. The main facet of this question is related to the Christian ethics requirement of contrition for the past wrongs, which in the case of memory erasure of particulary troubling experiences and personal choices would not be possible. The paper argues that there are limits to the ethical significance of contrition in the writings of the leading Christian fathers on the theme (e.g. St. Thomas Aquinas), where excessive suffering and inability to forgive oneself for one?s actions is an impediment to the achivement of tranquility of mind and spiritual redemption, rather than a prerequisite for it. The paper thus concludes that there is no hindrance in principle from the Christian ethics point of view to pursuing a voluntary and selective memory erasure as a psychotherapeutic technique once a fully adequate technology is available.

12. Fantasy and the Holocaust: Suspending Belief to Grasp the Unbelievable

This paper endeavors to explore how recent media has engaged with the memory of the Holocaust, and, more broadly, how fiction and technologies have found new and effective ways to engage with controversial histories. I propose specifically, fiction, fantasy, and magical realism are innovative ways of keeping memory of atrocities in history, such as the Holocaust, alive. I examine the genre of fiction and magical realism, while bringing particular examples from Yoram Gross’ animated series Sarah and the Squirrel, Jonathan Safran Foer’s film Everything is Illuminated, and Luc Bernard’s upcoming video game Imagination is the Only Escape. These three are all vastly different medias, but share very common motivations: to engage with history, principally the Holocaust, through imaginative and interactive story telling. Each also treat the subject of representation and memory, concluding that “reality” is diverse, fragmented, and ever changing through time and people. Through the fantastical, their stories lead spectators with a child-like perspective through experiences that transfer meaning, feelings, and affect, rather than facts. As survivors continue to pass away and time and distance puts the unbelievable events of the Holocaust in the far inaccessible past, the new generation endeavors to find immersive, interactive medium to continue to keep memory –what Alison Landsberg refers to as “prosthetic” or artificial memory –alive. While unconventional, the works listed above demonstrate that fantasy and magical realism can be an engaging, informative, and worthwhile form to engage with history, especially histories of violence.