Jill Bennett

Stigmata and Sense Memory: St Francis and the Affective Image

This article analyses a detail of an early fourteenth-century Umbrian crucifix, depicting a miniature St Francis at the feet of Christ. It reads the discrepancies of scale in the image in relation to both medieval devotional practices and theories of perception, arguing that the detail in late medieval imagery cannot be assimilated to the logic of the whole as it is in perspectivally constructed imagery. Rather, the detail retains a capacity to disrupt the whole and to function – in a manner similar to the Barthesian punctum– as a passage of affective resonance and ‘point-of-entry’ for the devotee. Drawing upon work on the ars memoriae and also upon contemporary theorizations of affectivity, the article points to the limitations of iconographic analysis and argues for a better understanding of the affective operations of images in this period.

Migratory Aesthetics: Art and Politics beyond Identity

This essay examines how “migratory aesthetics” expresses key dynamics in contemporary postcolonial culture and offers an alternative to identity politics. It demonstrates how migratory aesthetics is embodied in key international art exhibitions, from Kassel Documenta to the Contemporary Commonwealth show in Melbourne.Within the terms of identity politics, exhibitions function to represent specific groups, and also to constitute spaces in which disenfranchised or new “hybrid” identities might flourish. But the exhibiting of identity does not, in and of itself, enfranchise or facilitate participation. The institutional model of multiculturalism that simply promotes the representation of diverse identities as add-ons to mainstream culture is a static one, which does not address the issue of interaction; hence, “migrant” cultures may be acknowledged on their own terms, without any change to the “mainstream.” Migratory aesthetics, like other mobilisations of aesthetics that focus on connectivity and relationality, may be understood as a response to the limitations of identity politics in both institutional and aesthetic terms. An attempt to shift “identities” out of a static space into a dynamic set of relationships, it promotes new ways of understanding intercultural and transnational histories as well as new ways of imagining the future.

Emergent Knowledge in the Third Space of Art-Science

The locus of encounter between art, science and the public can be conceptualized as third space—a generative site of shared experience. This article reports on a group-based psychosocial method led by imagery and affect—the visual matrix—that enables researchers to capture and characterize knowledge emerging in third space, where disciplinary boundaries are fluid and there is no settled discourse. It presents an account of the visual matrix process in the context of an artscience collaboration on memory and forgetting. The authors show how the method illuminates aesthetic and affective dimensions of participant experience and captures the emerging, empathic and ethical knowing that is characteristic of third space.

The Amnesia Atlas VR. A photographic media interface as memory-prosthesis

The Amnesia Atlas constitutes a pilot study for a photographic media interface as memory prosthesis. It utilises the wearable life-logging camera SenseCam to shed light on the importance of photographic imagery and place for memory retrieval. It investigates the relationships of spatiotemporal context on memory encoding and retrieval, utilising immersive 3D visualisation. It is doing so by locating geo-tagged SenseCam image sequences within a virtual representation of the place they were captured at. Using an interactive map as a navigational interface, visitors are able to engage with the imagery in their spatial context, and retrace individual journeys by freely explore this virtual representation. The capacity of a viewer to experience ‘presence’ in relation to a place is known to be beneficial to memory encoding and retrieval, and so is the stimulation with multiple cues. The Amnesia Atlas provides users with a rich audio-visual context to view and interact with SenseCam recordings, and has the potential to be a valuable tool in memory research.

Face-to-Face Encounters: Testimonial Imagery and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission

The article comments on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission at which witnesses gave testimony before a live audience in public halls filmed for screening on television. Giving testimony thus becomes a face to face encounter since it is not a monologue spoken by an individual but a series of face-to-face encounters.