Art and memory

How will the arts capture the pandemic for posterity? Will the age of destruction and death lead us into new creative beginnings, marking perhaps a time of new enlightenment? Or will it rob the arts of their abiding quality—the ability to create lasting memories? The past two years of our shuttered existence has thrown the world of artists into a disruptive loop. Art that once engaged people in galleries, theatres, auditoria and other such spaces is now being served up on a screen, adapting (or not) for a work-from-home audience. And the experience, which was once a collective and participatory act, is now individual and exclusionary. 

In many ways, this is a transformational moment, in the way artists think about their practice as well as how their patrons and audiences imagine art’s role in their lives. Both form and perspective are caught in the swirl. As dancers reinterpret grief under the numbing gaze of a webcam or, as artists paint rainbows through the grilled windows of their isolation centres or create immersive escape hatches in the metaverse, they are twisting the double helix of their practice. Much like the artists of the Renaissance did, a millennia ago. For example, craftsmen-artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci brought their understanding of the human anatomy to create more realistic depictions of the body in their sketches and paintings. Da Vinci and many others used the emerging technology of their times—that of medical research, writing and translating the ancient texts—to reimagine art and define a cultural movement. 

The question is whether artists can find themselves in a similar space today and whether they create a documented record of the pandemic or give birth to new myths and metaphors. Just as the myriad ancient cultures did with the stories, songs and imagery for depicting calamitous events like plagues, floods and fires and other life-changing phenomena. 

In the timeless expanse of mythology, the great flood is the source of a vast body of legend, folklore and gods and goddesses. The experience led to a complex iconography and language that continues to wield tremendous power over the creative arts even today.

In India, for example, the unchecked outbreak of small-pox led to the rise of fever goddesses such as Sitala Devi and Mariamman. It also led to the development of disease-specific iconography for the gods. For example, the goddess Sitala, who is believed to cure smallpox as well as cause it, carries a pot in one hand and a broom in another, the pot holding the source of the disease and the broom meant to sweep it away. The pandemic has given rise to some lasting images too. The masked human, empty streets and phrases such as “Am I audible?” and “You are on mute” will store this moment for posterity. But the most striking image of our times is the spiky blob of the Coronavirus. Created by medical illustrators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA, it is a ubiquitous presence and will soon likely find a place in a list of all-time great logos or visual aids. 

Art is being changed by its makers and viewers because both artists and audiences are tangled up in a transitory moment. For people who view a dance or a painting on their computer screen, there is little to differentiate their worlds of work, home and entertainment. All space is an undifferentiated jumble. What does this mean for artists? Art is meant to be absorbing and inspiring, it slips into the synapses of the mind to create memory, which is a gift from Mnemosyne, the Greek Titan goddess of memory and remembrance. She ensured the preservation of the stories of history and the sagas of myth before the introduction of writing and was also believed to be the mother of the Mousai (Muses) who were originally patron goddesses of poets. Art, creativity and memory are therefore inextricably linked. But memory is both nurturing and treacherous. It does not always recycle the moment in its entirety. Or, true to form. However, in the isolation of our screens, art consumed through downloads and recordings becomes a documented experience, fixed and absolute, leaving little space for memory to weave its magic.

Many artists and art historians are marking this period as a critical turning point in the post-Anthropocene world of communication. A point when memory cedes ground to storage, bringing greater fixity to the experience but constricting the spaces for creative engagement. (Read an interview with Felipe Castelblanco, a multidisciplinary artist, working at the intersection of socially engaged and media art and Nishant Shah, dean of graduate school at the ArtEZ University of the Arts and the co-founder of the Centre for Internet & Society here: bit.ly/3ADgNzZ). Will this change the way art gives flight to the imagination or inspires life and influences culture? It will be a while before we can address the question but none of this will be worth debating if we do not recognise the flux and importance of the moment.