Memory, Montage, Constructions

Abstract

Memory can be understood as montage, like Walter Benjamin's image that is revealed in the comparison between cinema and Greek art, in which the power of the first one stands out. This power contrasts with the totalitarian concept of art, identified with the notion of aura and elevation. The monteur's right of choice is revealed and compared to a surgeon that cuts and pastes images, that composes a constellation: a new and partial ordering opposed not only to fascism, but to any form of totalitarianism. Defined as montage, memory raises the question of another time apprehension and a redefinition of its own conception, related to the notion of fort da, formulated by Freud as a play between presence and absence. It can also be seen as Valéry's pendulum, swinging between sound and silence, between memory and forgetfulness. In that sense, memory is associated with the Freudian concept of time in tiers, founded over ruins and fragments; and defined as fantasy, fiction, fantasmatic construction.