Fragments of Memory

August 16 2020

There are mental spaces, habitats if you like, to which we come back to. To rediscover these, to pose our baggage and sprawl out objects of thoughts collected elsewhere and collect anew, means we invariably have a good feeling about these spaces. They are mental spaces that resonate with our very being. They are recurring, to the extent that we may return throughout time on a number of occasions. We never know when we’ll come back, nor what we’ll discover during our time there. It is hoped that we may leave enriched yet perhaps we may never return. What are these places? They are often highly personal, often summed up in one single sentence or phrase and many have been passed down through the ages as common ‘truths’. What all these places have in common is a potential for developing further our thoughts. They are therefore spaces that are charged with latent possibilities for extending our ideas from amidst that cloudy activity we call reflection. Cloudy, murky, perhaps even dirty, reflection is a complex and abstract state of mental processes. An ongoing process and from which ideas may emerge once gathered in a cohesive manner. Ideas that may well be taken to a more concrete level and which will take on tangible form. I have a recurring space to which I return and from which I leave. To what extent you may wish to read between the lines and perhaps indulge in paths of reflection of another nature will all depend on one thing. The space you give and the framing of that space. What am I talking about?

If we take the word frame in its most literal and physical context we are talking about the framing of an image or text. An image that is surrounded by and composed within a set space. It is this space that is intended to be viewed, this composition and this focal point given by the presence of a frame. It is not the frame that interest us in particular but how that frame has been used to present something, an image. Our reading of that image is therefore in this context directed by the framing of it. Admittedly, images can be just framed, to put on a wall, on the mantlepiece or the bedside. From where we view it and take in what may well be a rather dull or uninteresting snapshot of family life. Beyond however this highly personal context and in a more professional and creative one, the activity of framing is something that takes place on a number of levels and indeed at the various stages of production, creation, conception and perception.

We can talk about the composition of an image or a text. A process by which we carefully and willingly place graphic elements accordingly. According to what? Well, we have many visual languages to choose from when composing. The film maker frames images differently from how the graphic designer may conceive the page. The comic strip artist can easily transgress film language, the illustrator replicate it and the architect sees everything from a bird’s eye view. Each of these disciplines rely on a language that has been developed in common interest as a means for both making and reading images. Even before an image is physically framed then, it is being framed in a conscious manner and in direct relation to a set of visual grammars. Let us take this even further though and delve into a space in which the frame is not yet a fixed entity but a constantly shifting one. Where the frame is not a physical support for images per se but rather a blurred bounday that englobes mental activities. The space I want to talk about here is of the mind and is intrinsically linked to that cloudy activity we call reflection. This crucial stage of both image making and image reading is a complex yet fascinating subject. Bound at times in what the aesthetic thinkers have labeled convention, yet freeing itself from these restraints with what some have called subversion, the notion of framing is one possible perspective amongst many that attempts to grapple with that most abstract of activities and mental space we call reflection. What happens during this on-going process is a constant battle between two opposing forces, is it not ?

Reflection is a dynamic and constantly shifting activity. The word shifting is an important linguistic choice and I am indeed framing my idea here in using it. Choosing this word was on a personal level a meaningful one. I am therefore choosing to give it a meaningful context with which I hope to communicate the notion of movement in the process of thought. In so doing, I am equally implying that there is no static moment in thought. We can observe an object, say a table for example and we can be sure of the term we have for that object. The convention of the word table is a means for common ground to communicate. Once we start describing the table and developing our observations on what we perceive, the possibilities for extending the convention of our language, the word table, is limitless. Furthermore, the exchange can take place between a number of people, each with their unique regard on the subject matter at hand. Some may well be content with purely descriptive qualities; the size, the colour, the shape. Others may well extrapolate and share with more personal experiences. The table before me on which I’m writing reminds me of having Sunday lunch with the family, the conversations, the smells, the conviviality of being in good company. The table was bought from a middle-aged man for 100€ at the flea market. He kindly helped me take it home. That information is matter for reflection and only I could have truly expressed it. The extent to which we derive meaning from an experience is infinitely open and yet driven by certain conventions. To talk about a table as if it were a ship would be non-sensical, unless that is we were telling a comical or fantastical story. We can see then from this rather plain example that our reflections can quickly develop into ideas and that these ideas come with a certain context to them. The context is linked directly with one’s experience yet is also bound by mutual convention and understanding. If it is not, then we risk loosing what we search for - expressing meaning. We could develop ideas about a table that floats and serves as a ship or perhaps that the wood that was used to make the table came from a ship. However, if this is not made explicit in our development and presentation of the idea and is not comprehensible to others, it lacks the value of meaning. Meaning is the bringing together of details and particulars into an experienced whole that others have the capacity to comprehend or at least unravel.

Some further ideas for reflection :

The articulation of these spaces takes shape as ideas.

The importance of what develops from these reflections is directly linked with the confidence to which we present them with and the extent to which these are taken on by a culture at large.
This last point is in direct relation to both the meaningfulness and the cohesiveness of our reflections.
It is non-linear, rather radial - a network of thoughts.
It is not so much the process that interests me as such, rather the ‘tools’ by which we endeavour on this creative quest. The mind is a complex space. To keep it in check we cultivate strategies of thought that adhere to a common set of beliefs. Beliefs that have been passed down and communicated or perhaps even dictated to us as ‘truths’. The mind needs these as a means to structure thought in a cohesive manner. Without them, we risk literally loosing our minds. There is a certain comfort in knowing that what we think or believe in is shared by others. For without this reciprocal acceptance of thoughts and ideas, we risk being marginalised and the confidence with which we can communicate our very being becomes increasingly more difficult.

As also mentioned by Dewey - It is the gathering of the particulars and the details into an experienced whole that gives forth to what we may call perception.

Reflection is a dynamic and constantly shifting activity. It is open.
It is inherently linked with time.
It opens up fields of possibilities. (Gombrich & Eco)
Reflection is intrinsically linked with experience.
We go from the particular to the general. (J.Berger)

Finally, there is little space for radical thought without the strength to stand, often alone.