#095 Digital Amnesia
“Parce que leur mémoire est courte, les hommes accumulent d’innombrables pense-bêtes.” – Toute la mémoire du monde, Alain Resnais
[Because their memory is short, men accumulate innumerable reminders.]
Human beings are obsessive self-archivists. We have a short-span memory but we want to remember as much as possible. In the past decade, more information has been recorded than in all centuries that came before and data has become the oil of the 21st century. We are obsessively documenting and digitally storing our personal memories as well: social media and smart data-mining apps became our traditional archives. But in the process of storing everything digitally, including our personal memories, are we forgetting to remember? “We can scroll back on our timelines forever but what gets lost if the process of remembering is no longer based on creative reconstruction but on the click-and-play of digital data?” Are we losing our ability to remember without images?
The program “Digital Amnesia” explores the relationship between memory and technology, from old archives and libraries up to social media induced memories. Since data is also vulnerable, are we putting too much faith in our “digital memories”? Will digital technologies be able to keep perfect accounts of the past? Are we storing too many memories and creating digital clutter?
This programme was created by Montse Pujol Sola as part of her Internship in 2021
Films in this programme
(1956, 22 min)
(2001, 6 min)
(2009, 8:00 mins)
(2010, 6 min)
(2018, 5 min)
(2017, 19 min)