During a rewatch of La Biblioteca de Monde, I could not help but relate the theme of media and memory to the current political extremism throughout media and erasure of common knowledge. Throughout the film, Umberto Eco emphasizes the importance of memory; he states that humans who live in time cannot build a future without memory. He compares living in time to being an athlete, “to spring forward, we must back up first (Umberto Eco).” In the film, Umberto Eco initially establishes different kinds of memory: organic memory, vegetal memory, and mineral memory. Eco describes organic memory as the one in our brain and vegetal memory as books and physical understandings, a parallel to organic memory. Mineral memory is memory that is kept in the “silicon of our electronic devices (Umberto Eco).” The interesting dynamic Eco points out, however, is the effect that mineral memory has on the other two. Because humans can offload our memory to external resources, Eco believes we are essentially choosing not to remember. The structure of memory is a paradigm of social structure and, if memory is offloaded, then there is no space for human connection to others and to one’s own mind. Thus, using digital technology as a crutch or replacement for memory is putting functioning society and our organic memory at risk of loss.
In parallel with Umberto Eco’s concept of media and memory, Caroline Jones in “Evocative Objects: Things We Think With” shares concern with the reliance on technology to that effects memory (pp. 232–43). Jones recounts her experience with a painting in her attic, one of which she made and emphasizes that a physical memory’s medium narrows the scopes of perception via the technology of which that is created. Using Jones’ example, her painting purposefully excludes her sister and creates Jones’ idealistic version of her family. As the maker of this piece of art, she controlled the image that the audience would see. Technology and mediums of correspondence have the ability to capture all parts of the picture, yet it is the user’s responsibility to include or omit any information. The autonomy of technology has even grown autonomous outside of human interference within systems that are growing more advanced as time moves forward (Ellul). For example, AI has replaced the strenuous process of writing a cover letter, to an extensively narrower process; replacing 10 steps with one.
After the publication of the medium of communication, it is up to the viewer’s interpretation of how the message is received. In Jone’s case, the medium is her painting, and her older self is the viewer, so she is interpreting a false representation of her family as true because there is no context except her own. Ultimately, Jones is warning readers about how when authors use technology, they can control perceptions which can narrow perceptions about the entire reality of a situation.
The painting in the attic was used to reload this memory in the mind of the maker. It was not until Jones revisited the painting that she realized a different perspective (Jones). The internet can be used as a tool to record, essentially, an infinite number of texts; however, it has oversaturated the world with information. Umberto Eco states that the functions of memory consist of (1) preserving memory and (2) selecting memory. Memories are preserved and selected, and the rest are filtered out for being too useless or too complicated. Due to the internet, information is now dispersed and abundant with little to no filtering. Eco states that the effect of the lack of filtering is overloading information to humans, which is promoting the use of mineral memory, which, in turn, is erasing organic memory.
A physical representation of the overloading of the human mind using technology would be the employed content moderators. In Casey Newton’s article “The Trauma Floor,” there is a recount of the working conditions and traumas of the content moderators employed by Cognizant. In the article, Newton describes the graphic memories that the employees must keep and preserve, to filter the internet for every other user. The Cognizant content moderators are a real-life comparison to Funes el memorioso, the anecdote Umberto Eco used in the film to represent how the surplus of information can drive one mad.
The internet has created a mechanism for a mass dispersion of information, which has led to an erasure of common knowledge within a society. In result of the erasure of common knowledge, Umberto Eco states that there can be no human relationships. “There is a virtual change that 6 billion people on the planet surfing individually on the net could come up with 6 billion different opinions on what knowledge is, which could cause a communication black out.” This reliance on digital media as a news source has created a digression in politics because of extended sources of information. Currently, there is no more concentration of information that generates common knowledge amongst society. Walter Benjamin’s theory of Cult of Mass Distraction articulates the point that a distracted audience is not one substance (The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction). In political media, the tsunami of information has desensitized audiences which has resulted in apathy or extremism from audiences. Amongst extremists, there seems to be a migration of groups that hold power in the spreading of information; people are looking for community in the age of information and working in numbers is the most effective (Michael).
The issue of these groups forming that control information is that there are no more individual thoughts within those groups. Having shared common knowledge does not mean that opinions are the same (Eco). Because of this information that is being flown in the wind, there is no time to critically think. Thus, our memories are not holding anything but attaching to one that creates the most commonality. There is now no communication among others, but movements of ideologies. Media has become the method of communication that political parties use to create their image of iconography. It has been weaponized and a source of attention grabbing, where world leaders are chosen by popularity. The only resolution is to convene information so that people can share knowledge and develop individual opinions (Olanrian & Williams, 2020).
Ultimately, Umberto Eco has highlighted the importance of memory and has demonstrated how media has affected the processes that affect our memory functions. History tells us how to move through the future effectively: information historically was preserved in vegetal memory and physical memory, which is how information was passed. Humans were accustomed to offloading and spreading knowledge. However, because of the digital age and the internet’s seemingly endless memory space (mineral memory), humans have offloaded too much memory to the point where so much memory has been almost lost. The results of the loss of memory have seemingly taken effect in today’s political media. The desensitization of media audiences has resulted in audiences that cannot learn from history because there is too much noise to form an opinion. Humans cannot handle every point of information; there needs to be a filter to determine what to preserve in organic memory or vegetal memory to pass information. Information has been used as a tool for growth; now it has been weaponized as a tool for power. The only resolution that is reasonably attainable is a reconvention of knowledge and a safe space for opinion.
Works Cited
Cover Photo is the poster from Umberto Eco: La Biblioteca del Mondo.
Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, translated by Harry Zohn, Random House, 1936, https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm.
Ellul, Jaques. “The “Autonomy of the Technological Phenomenon.” Philosophy of Technology: The Technological Condition – An Anthology, edited by Van Dusek, Wiley Blackwell, 2003, pp. 386-397, https://nissenbaum.tech.cornell.edu/papers/autonomy.pdf.
Jones, Caroline A. “THE PAINTING IN THE ATTIC.” Evocative Objects: Things We Think With, edited by Sherry Turkle, The MIT Press, 2007, pp. 232–43. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hhg8p.31.
Michael, George. Extremism in America, edited by George Michael, University Press of Florida, 2014, pp. 1–14. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvx079sk.4.
Newton, Casey. The Trauma Floor, The Verge, Feb 25, 2019, https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona.
Olaniran, Bolane, and Indi Williams. “Social Media Effects: Hijacking Democracy and Civility in Civic Engagement.” Platforms, Protests, and the Challenge of Networked Democracy 77–94. 27 Feb. 2020, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-36525-7_5.
Umberto Eco: La biblioteca del mondo. Directed by Davide Ferrario, archival interviews with Umberto Eco, 2022.