Focus on | make cultural memory "alive"

In the past ten years, the mainland has vigorously promoted the construction of museums, and the social and cultural functions of museums have become increasingly prominent. The museum is not simply a storage space for historical artifacts, but also a bearer of cultural memory, with the function of preserving and perpetuating cultural memory. At the same time, due to the stripping from the historical context, the museum not only evokes and repairs the historical and cultural memory of the public, but also forms a new language order in a new spatial way, which promotes the enrichment and development of contemporary culture.

Museums: carriers of cultural memory

From a sociological point of view, memory is not only an individual psychological phenomenon, but also a carrier and product of social group culture. As a space for the collection, display, research and education of cultural products, the museum has also become a converter between individual memory and collective memory, historical and cultural memory. As the material carrier of history, cultural relics themselves, on the one hand, visualize abstract historical memory into individual memory; on the other hand, as an intuitive image, cultural relics evoke or reshape the cultural memory of the masses.

As individual museum visitors, most people's cultural memories of ancient history come mainly from books, networks, social interactions, or other media, and this indirect acquisition method makes this part of the memory relatively abstract, vague, inactive, and less related to personal memory. The museum, especially the cultural relics in the history museum, transforms the abstract cultural memory of the public into an intuitive visual image, and the museum's multiple display methods further activate the public's auditory, tactile and other sensory experiences. Compared with abstract language symbols, images and pictures, the sensory experience stimulated by this intuitive and real object has a closer relationship with individual experience, and it is easier to form new individual memories and activate indirectly obtained historical and cultural memories, thereby completing the memory transformation of history and reality, individuals and groups.

The difference between a physical museum and a digital virtual museum and grid pictures is its irreplaceable sense of real situationality and experience. Whether it is due to the historical tradition of museum space, or the protection and display needs of museum collections, the architectural space of physical museums is generally relatively tall and quiet, creating a sacred and solemn atmosphere. This sense of live experience is irreplaceable by other forms of viewing.

Not only that, in order to make the public better understand cultural relics, most museums will use physical objects, prop models and sound, light, electricity, color and other means to achieve the simulation and reproduction of physical scenes, complete the maximum restoration of the historical situation of cultural relics, so that the public can better understand cultural relics in the historical context of cultural relics. The resurrection of historical context transforms the abstract understanding of words into concrete and vivid situations, strengthens the public's cognition of history, and is easier to stimulate the public's senses and form a historical and cultural identity than a simple display of cultural relics. At the same time, the creation of the museum's public communication space makes up for the lack and difference of individual memory, unifies the cultural cognition of the public, and the individual memory accumulates in the process of public communication to form a common cultural memory.

Memory Reconstruction: The Potential Cultural Function of a Museum

Researchers argue that "the past is not preserved, but reconstructed on the basis of the present." Similarly, the collective framework of memory is not constructed according to the simple summation principle of individual memory... Rather, the collective framework is precisely the tool by which collective memory can reconstruct images of the past that, in every epoch, are consistent with the dominant ideas of society." This differs from psychological research in that the former negates the individuality, negativity and passivity of memory, and affirms the collectivity, sociality and active constructiveness of memory.

Collective memory is essentially a reconstruction of the "past" based on the "present." On the one hand, the experience of the "present" depends heavily on the knowledge of the "past", which reflects the continuity of history and culture. But on the other hand, the "present" cannot be a complete reservation and continuation of the "past", it must have a present nature, and it will affect the preservation and development of the memory of the "past". Therefore, although the museum is the storage and display space of historical relics, it is not a negative carrier of cultural memory, and the museum not only completes the reinterpretation and re-understanding of history and culture in the process of studying and disseminating the collection, but also uses its own language order and narrative structure to evoke individual cultural memory and reconstruct the framework of cultural memory.

Historical development may have some intrinsic connection and logic, but the main factors in historical records and interpretations, as well as the contingency and fragmentation of cultural relics excavations themselves as historical physical evidence, may not be able to truly restore the historical situation. This makes the cultural relics detached from the historical context of the time, becoming a floating "signifier", and in the current context, through reinterpretation, a new "signifier" is obtained. As a "field", the museum space itself is closed, selective, and spatially separated and sorted, making it not only a physical display space, but also has the characteristics of spatial power. As the carrier of national memory, public museums represent the mainstream cultural concepts and value judgments of the country, so the process of selecting and reshaping culture in different periods is itself.

Not only does the selection and display of cultural relics reflect the cultural positioning and understanding of culture of the museum, but the display space of cultural relics reflects the different interpretations of history. Relative to the continuity and integrity of history, the presentation of history by cultural relics is fragmented and fragmented. However, in the process of display, the museum will generally use two ways of vertical-historical, horizontal-type sorting, so as to connect the fragmented cultural relics to form a certain narrative structure, and the value of cultural relics does not depend only on their own value, but on the position in this narrative structure. The placement and spatial position of cultural relics reflect its position in this narrative structure, or its status and value in cultural memory.

Not only that, but the spatial narrative of the museum often has integrity and continuity, and the fragmented individual cultural relics form some kind of internal connection in this narrative process, and clearly show the integrity of history. Therefore, when the public enters the museum space, they will unconsciously visit along this narrative order, connecting the scattered memories of individuals for cultural relics and history to form a historical and cultural view consistent with the museum narrative. This narrative method not only completes the reinterpretation of the cultural significance of cultural relics, but also completes the re-writing of cultural history. The public unconsciously accepts this cultural shaping in the process of viewing, and collects the evoked individual memory into group memory to complete the reshaping of cultural memory.

In today's construction of a cultural power, how to fully excavate and give play to the social and cultural functions of museums deserves further consideration.

(Author Affilications:College of Fine Arts, Shandong Normal University)

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