Prosthetic Landscapes: Place and Placelessness in the Digitization of Memorials

Abstract:Can landscapes be moved? What does it mean for a landscape not to have a place when the former is often equated with the latter in geographical terms? The essay considers the relevance and resonance of place (and space) as related to landscapes of memory. By considering the increasing digitization of memory via the burgeoning geoweb, the authors aim to explore the future of memorial-making, which has long been a physical and material practice that treats site as a remnant of authenticity. While monuments often commemorate events that occurred elsewhere, landscapes themselves are frequently all that remains of histories long forgotten. The essay considers whether these landscapes can be captured, transported, and inscribed in the social imagination (as cultural memory) as an ex-situ experience. It concludes with three illustrative memorial propositions and emphasize how geospatial media might be harnessed in contemporary memorial-making to transport us virtually to sites of memory and transport memorial landscapes into the space of our everyday lives. These propositions rely on the adaptability and accretional nature of new media technologies to commemorate ongoing processes of loss. Rather than commemorate the singularity of sites as uniquely sacred, these technologies enable awareness of larger networks of memory that draw people together across geographies and "chasms of difference."