Critical Reflection

Remediation and Cultural Memory

In today’s digital age, traditional paper map, as the visual representation of an area, has long fallen into oblivion and been replaced by digital map. However, in recent years, there is a new kind of paper map that begins to catch our eyes in China—hand-drawn map—for its highly dynamic representation of both personal and collective memory. As I have shown in my first and second blog posts (Hand-drawn Map made by Local University Students and Hand-Drawn Tourist Map), what we see in the adaption of digital photograph and traditional paper map, etc. into hand-drawn map is what Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin call “remediation” in Remediation: Understanding New Media. In this book, remediation is explained as the process of representing one medium in another, and it is always accomplished through the way of “repurposing” (45). Thus, remediation could be considered as a way of cultural transmission, as well as what Andrew Hoskins refers to as the “memorialisation of an older medium” (30).

Remediation plays an active role in preserving the culture, and cultural memory relies on “repurposing”, which refers to the way of taking a “property” from one medium and reusing it in another (Bolter and Grusin, 45). During this process, “memorial media borrow from, incorporate, absorb, critique and refashion earlier memorial media” (Erll and Rigney, 5). And this process is often motivated by either “homage” or “rivalry” (Bolter and Grusin, 49). As Figure 10, 11, 15, 18, and 19 in the first two blog posts have shown, the authors of these maps pick up the visual style of traditional Chinese painting to represent and remediate traditional paper map. To some extent, hand-drawn map could be considered as belonging to the special type of remediation—"the remediation within a single medium" (Bolter and Grusin, 49). Unlike the traditional ones, people who is reading these hand-drawn maps does not need to read the verbal names of the places on the maps, but instead, they recognize the places through a more direct way—visual images.

Moreover, the dynamics of cultural memory relies not on a single media, but on the repeated representations of different media formats (Bolter and Grusin, 15). As Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin have summarized that no medium today could simply do its cultural work without the help of any other media (15). Due to the prevalence of digital photographs and maps, traditional Chinese painting and paper map have gradually become a hazy and dim memory. However, hand-drawn maps use the most straightforward way to represent themselves as a memorialisation of the ancient Chinese aesthetic, and at the same time, it evokes a sense of nostalgia for the long-forgotten Chinese art.

With the help of digital map and photograph, hand-drawn maps have some specific features that make them more distinguished than the traditional paper maps. For instance, hand-drawn map adopts the techniques of zoom in and zoom out to allow itself to enlarge and reduce the scope of the map according to different purpose (see Figure 9). Like the map shown in Figure 9, the actual distance between the West Campus and the North Campus far exceeds the distance that has been shown on the map.Thus, we can conclude that this map sacrifices some inessential details in order to show the main objects in a more direct and clear way. The example I show here is just part of the whole, but it enlightens our views on how to preserve the cultural heritage in the future. Hence, media plays the role of not only providing us a way of memorizing the past, but also “setting the agenda for future acts of remembrance within society” (Erll and Rigney, 3).

Furthermore, the process of creating a personal hand-drawn map is highly interactive. Since the process of creating a hand-drawn map is physical, it helps people to revisit their past memory and refresh it in a more creative way, and it allows personal diversity to the most extreme. In other word, people could bring in their own preference and individual tastes when creating their own hand-drawn maps. As Figure 4 and 9 have shown, some of the constructions and buildings on the map have already been pulled down, but are still shown on the map, and are marked as “demolished.” Thus, it is not a necessity to create your personal hand-drawn map strictly according to some rules, and neither does it need to be constrained by time and space.

Hand-drawn map, as the remediation of digital map, digital photograph, and traditional Chinese painting, uses graphic representation of both personal and collective memories to provides us with a “transparent window on the past” (Erll and Rigney, 4). Moreover, through the process of creating the hand-drawn map, we are given the chance to revisit both personal and collective memories and represent them in our own ways. Under the circumstance of current digital age, hand-drawn map enlightens us with a way of how to preserve our cultural memory and heritage. As Astrid Erll and Ann Rigney have argued that it is based on repeated media representations and “remediated version of the past” could cultural memory and heritage be carried forward (4), and at the same time not  be threatened by digital technology.

Bibliography

Bolter, Jay David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999. Print.

Erll, Astrid, and Ann Rigney. “Introduction: Cultural Memory and Its Dynamics.” Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory. Ed.AstridErll and Ann Rigney. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. 1-14. Print.

Hoskins, Andrew. “The Mediasation of Memory.” Save as.. DigitalMemories. Ed.Joanne Garde-Hansen, Andrew Hoskins, and Anna Reading. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 27-43. Print.