The Construction of Memory 3: Dany Nobus & Sharon Kivland

Dany Nobus: It's a Poor Sort of Memory that Only Works Backwards

In this paper, I will argue that the controversial issue concerning the truth value of human memories is in itself a false debate. With reference to the reality of the event that is being recalled, memories are always by definition false. In terms of the subjective experience of the one who is remembering, they are always by definition true. Hence, from a psychoanalytic perspective memories are always simultaneously objectively false and subjectively true, and this can be the starting point for a re-evaluation of Freud's significance for contemporary 'scientific' discussions on the substance and function of memory.

 

Sharon Kivland: Last Year

I am trying to remember a film. It is film about the construction of memory (I think), as it might take place during a psychoanalysis, though I have only half an hour today rather than several years. I have watched the film, as I have done many times before, since 1970 in fact; this time, for a week, trying not to fall asleep at the point I have fallen asleep in it for the last forty-three years. Each time I have awoken, I have tried to remember what I saw last, before I slept. This is a film reconstructed through memory. This is a screen memory. In a series of flashbacks, I try to go back to a founding moment – I do not believe this to be true, but it still works.

 

Alasdair Hopwood: Closing Remarks

 

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