Castellano
B. B.: Trauma-time y reconsolidación de memoria
Capturar [la compleja conectividad entre tiempo, memoria y cuerpo a través del prismo del trauma] apunta a una fragmentada y cíclica temporalidad que es dialéctica en naturaleza. Por un lado, el “otro tiempo” del evento intrusivo existe en contínua dualidad al lado del tiempo ordinario. Por otro lado, el evento traumático regresa cíclicamente, con una fuerza que rompe marcos temporales y que sucesivamente conduce el pasado, presente y futuro a colapsar en atemporalidad.
Julia Viebach, “Of other times: Temporality, memory and trauma in post-genocide Rwanda”
La memoria no es lineal. Ocupa varias temporalidades y es susceptible a alteraciones, incluso luego de almacenamiento. Cada memoria está compuesta de varios elementos, incluyendo la respuesta emocional a ella, que pueden ser modificados, en particular directamente luego de su activación, durante una ventana de re-consolidación. Esto complica la noción de un único pasado, estable e inamovible, en el que anclamos nuestras percepciones de realidad. En el caso de trauma, “la experiencia aterradora se almacena diferentemente a una ‘normal’ y no puede ni ser recuperada bajo circunstancias normales ni situada bajo control voluntario o conciencia explícita” (Viebach, 2019). Se re-vive, voluntaria o involuntariamente, en el original marco de tiempo de su ocurrencia, no como una memoria narrativa. El tiempo de trauma no es cronológico, sino duracional; no pertenece al pasado histórico, sino al presente, como un registro aún por inscribirse. Memorias de trauma regresan “solo como experiencias, y no como memorias discursivas - ellas no pueden nunca ser representaciones, sino solo presencia ” (Argenti y Schramm, 2009).
Al describir un episodio traumático, sobrevivientes tienden a saltar de una temporalidad a otra. Conjugan en un modo y, de pronto, en otro, usando pasado, pasado pretérito, presente y futuro aparentemente de manera incoherente. Las leyes ordenadas de gramática se desmoronan: estoy en x lugar y me sucedió y. Esto señala una necesidad e inhabilidad de racionalizar o dar lógica a experiencias que arremeten contra cualquier marco de razón y entendimiento y contra las más básicas leyes de comportamiento y convivencia social. Si entendemos lo lógico como intrínsecamente crono-lógico, donde a precede a b y ambos preceden a c, entonces el trauma como experiencia atemporal, contra-temporal o perpetuamente presente es incomprensible.
La instalación B. B. funciona como dispositivo lingüístico, visual y experiencial. La obra está compuesta por varias capas, haciendo alusión a la estructura compleja de una memoria. El manuscripto proviene de la transcripción directa de una conversación y narra, dando varios saltos cronológicos, una experiencia de trauma de la madre de la artista. La altura del texto, el desgaste de la tinta en secciones y los pliegues sobre el suelo dificultan la lectura y requieren una aproximación individual. El labor de manuscripción remite a la duda, a la inexactitud y al error; también a la constancia casi monástica, como si fuera un escrito sacro. A ambos lados del elemento central están su sombra y un lienzo en blanco, versiones del texto en diferentes temporalidades que enclaustran e invitan la contemplación.
Capturar [la compleja conectividad entre tiempo, memoria y cuerpo a través del prismo del trauma] apunta a una fragmentada y cíclica temporalidad que es dialéctica en naturaleza. Por un lado, el “otro tiempo” del evento intrusivo existe en contínua dualidad al lado del tiempo ordinario. Por otro lado, el evento traumático regresa cíclicamente, con una fuerza que rompe marcos temporales y que sucesivamente conduce el pasado, presente y futuro a colapsar en atemporalidad.
Julia Viebach, “Of other times: Temporality, memory and trauma in post-genocide Rwanda”
La memoria no es lineal. Ocupa varias temporalidades y es susceptible a alteraciones, incluso luego de almacenamiento. Cada memoria está compuesta de varios elementos, incluyendo la respuesta emocional a ella, que pueden ser modificados, en particular directamente luego de su activación, durante una ventana de re-consolidación. Esto complica la noción de un único pasado, estable e inamovible, en el que anclamos nuestras percepciones de realidad. En el caso de trauma, “la experiencia aterradora se almacena diferentemente a una ‘normal’ y no puede ni ser recuperada bajo circunstancias normales ni situada bajo control voluntario o conciencia explícita” (Viebach, 2019). Se re-vive, voluntaria o involuntariamente, en el original marco de tiempo de su ocurrencia, no como una memoria narrativa. El tiempo de trauma no es cronológico, sino duracional; no pertenece al pasado histórico, sino al presente, como un registro aún por inscribirse. Memorias de trauma regresan “solo como experiencias, y no como memorias discursivas - ellas no pueden nunca ser representaciones, sino solo presencia ” (Argenti y Schramm, 2009).
Al describir un episodio traumático, sobrevivientes tienden a saltar de una temporalidad a otra. Conjugan en un modo y, de pronto, en otro, usando pasado, pasado pretérito, presente y futuro aparentemente de manera incoherente. Las leyes ordenadas de gramática se desmoronan: estoy en x lugar y me sucedió y. Esto señala una necesidad e inhabilidad de racionalizar o dar lógica a experiencias que arremeten contra cualquier marco de razón y entendimiento y contra las más básicas leyes de comportamiento y convivencia social. Si entendemos lo lógico como intrínsecamente crono-lógico, donde a precede a b y ambos preceden a c, entonces el trauma como experiencia atemporal, contra-temporal o perpetuamente presente es incomprensible.
La instalación B. B. funciona como dispositivo lingüístico, visual y experiencial. La obra está compuesta por varias capas, haciendo alusión a la estructura compleja de una memoria. El manuscripto proviene de la transcripción directa de una conversación y narra, dando varios saltos cronológicos, una experiencia de trauma de la madre de la artista. La altura del texto, el desgaste de la tinta en secciones y los pliegues sobre el suelo dificultan la lectura y requieren una aproximación individual. El labor de manuscripción remite a la duda, a la inexactitud y al error; también a la constancia casi monástica, como si fuera un escrito sacro. A ambos lados del elemento central están su sombra y un lienzo en blanco, versiones del texto en diferentes temporalidades que enclaustran e invitan la contemplación.
English
B.. B.: Trauma-time and memory re-consolidation
In 1986 a pregnant woman walked into a hospital in Asunción to give birth. She was forcefully sedated and woke up on the surgery table during an unwanted C-section, where her OBGYN doctor offered her US$200.00 for her newborn. When she protested the crime, the same doctor accused her of postpartum depression-induced insanity and requested that she be interned in a psychiatric hospital.
The woman is my mother, the baby is my sister and this story has circulated our lives like a vulture. Although traumatic, it is far from unique. The topic of OBGYN medical terrorism and stolen babies for black-market adoption under dictatorship is a common enough experience that we have learned of two other victims despite the culturally enforced secrecy on such subjects. Three stories, three pregnancies and three women lie at the center of my project.
These stories are highly personal and, at the same time, violently political. They set the scene for the vulnerability of gestating bodies under a militaristic and patriarchal society. I have begun to work through the generational trauma that this story catalyzed in the form of an installation titled B. B.: Trauma-time y re-consolidación de memoria. This installation features a handwritten transcription of a conversation with my mother, where she recounts her experience in an organic way, giving forward and backwards jumps in chronological time and slipping between grammatical tenses. (It is noteworthy that the conversation is in Spanish and my mother’s mother tongue is Guarani, which further complicates the narration.)
As part of my research on the concept of trauma-time and voicing traumatic memory I have been in contact with Dr. Julia Viebach, Departamental Lecturer in African Studies at Oxford, whose works have been instrumental in elaborating my work (in particular, Of other times: Temporality, memory and trauma in post-genocide Rwanda). They have helped me navigate the pitfalls and particularities of hearing trauma.
Memory is not linear. It occupies various temporalities and is susceptible to alterations, even after being stored. Each memory is composed of several elements, one of which is the emotional response - something that can be modified, in particular after the memory’s activation. This period is named the reconsolidation window and has significant implications for therapy. The plasticity of memory complicates the notion of a single past, stable and immovable, in which we may safely anchor our perceptions of reality. In the case of trauma, “the frightening experience is stored differently from a ‘normal’ one and can neither be retrieved under normal circumstances nor placed under voluntary control or conscious awareness” (Viebach, 2019). It is re-lived, voluntarily or involuntarily, in its original time frame and not as a past memory. Trauma-time is not chronological, but durational; it does not belong to the historical past, but to the present, as a record that has not yet been archived. Memories of trauma “are doomed to return only as experiences, and not as discursive memories – they can never be representations, but only presence” (Argenti and Schramm, 2009).
In describing a traumatic episode survivors tend to jump from one temporality to another. In Spanish this means conjugating in one tense and, suddenly, in another, alternating between preterite, imperfect, future, conditional, subjunctive and present apparently in a disordered manner. The orderly rules that govern grammar fall apart. This signals a need and inability to rationalize or to give logic to experiences that exceed the boundaries of reason and understanding and go against the most fundamental laws of social behavior and cohabitation. If we understand what is logical as intrinsically chrono-logical, where a precedes b and both precede c, then trauma as an extra-temporal or anti-temporal or atemporal experience is incomprehensible.
In 1986 a pregnant woman walked into a hospital in Asunción to give birth. She was forcefully sedated and woke up on the surgery table during an unwanted C-section, where her OBGYN doctor offered her US$200.00 for her newborn. When she protested the crime, the same doctor accused her of postpartum depression-induced insanity and requested that she be interned in a psychiatric hospital.
The woman is my mother, the baby is my sister and this story has circulated our lives like a vulture. Although traumatic, it is far from unique. The topic of OBGYN medical terrorism and stolen babies for black-market adoption under dictatorship is a common enough experience that we have learned of two other victims despite the culturally enforced secrecy on such subjects. Three stories, three pregnancies and three women lie at the center of my project.
These stories are highly personal and, at the same time, violently political. They set the scene for the vulnerability of gestating bodies under a militaristic and patriarchal society. I have begun to work through the generational trauma that this story catalyzed in the form of an installation titled B. B.: Trauma-time y re-consolidación de memoria. This installation features a handwritten transcription of a conversation with my mother, where she recounts her experience in an organic way, giving forward and backwards jumps in chronological time and slipping between grammatical tenses. (It is noteworthy that the conversation is in Spanish and my mother’s mother tongue is Guarani, which further complicates the narration.)
As part of my research on the concept of trauma-time and voicing traumatic memory I have been in contact with Dr. Julia Viebach, Departamental Lecturer in African Studies at Oxford, whose works have been instrumental in elaborating my work (in particular, Of other times: Temporality, memory and trauma in post-genocide Rwanda). They have helped me navigate the pitfalls and particularities of hearing trauma.
Memory is not linear. It occupies various temporalities and is susceptible to alterations, even after being stored. Each memory is composed of several elements, one of which is the emotional response - something that can be modified, in particular after the memory’s activation. This period is named the reconsolidation window and has significant implications for therapy. The plasticity of memory complicates the notion of a single past, stable and immovable, in which we may safely anchor our perceptions of reality. In the case of trauma, “the frightening experience is stored differently from a ‘normal’ one and can neither be retrieved under normal circumstances nor placed under voluntary control or conscious awareness” (Viebach, 2019). It is re-lived, voluntarily or involuntarily, in its original time frame and not as a past memory. Trauma-time is not chronological, but durational; it does not belong to the historical past, but to the present, as a record that has not yet been archived. Memories of trauma “are doomed to return only as experiences, and not as discursive memories – they can never be representations, but only presence” (Argenti and Schramm, 2009).
In describing a traumatic episode survivors tend to jump from one temporality to another. In Spanish this means conjugating in one tense and, suddenly, in another, alternating between preterite, imperfect, future, conditional, subjunctive and present apparently in a disordered manner. The orderly rules that govern grammar fall apart. This signals a need and inability to rationalize or to give logic to experiences that exceed the boundaries of reason and understanding and go against the most fundamental laws of social behavior and cohabitation. If we understand what is logical as intrinsically chrono-logical, where a precedes b and both precede c, then trauma as an extra-temporal or anti-temporal or atemporal experience is incomprehensible.
