“The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget.”

That's John Berger, from Ways of Seeing, i think. Anne McClintock quoted it today in her talk at the conference at Barnard to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Hazel Carby's Reconstructing Womanhood, in reference to Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, and the visual politics of torture. McClintock's piece was insightful and provocative, but Berger's claim is itself deeply provocative, and i think it is often true, Cure songs not withstanding, ( or perhaps Smith's lyrical persona constructed through the tropes of loss and a very obvious disintegration is instead illustrative.) So I am glad that i took no pictures today, to apply said insight in the most banal, generalized, and dehistoricized of all possible ways, because it was not something I want or intend to forget.