The issue of memory in the fictional photographers of Italo Calvino, Adolfo Bioy Casares and Julio Cortázar

Abstract

This article proposes an analysis of three stories involving questions of memory and photography. In "The Adventures of a Photographer" by Italo Calvino, the main character Antonino becomes obsessed with photography, searching for a way to record everything that happens around him. In "The Invention of Morel" by Adolfo Bioy Casares, the idea of reproducing ad infinitum moments lived by a group of friends, using a device that not only records moving images, but also smells, sounds, textures and volumes, exacerbates the characteristics of photography and cinema. Finally, in "Blow Up", Julio Cortázar, photography appears as a form of documentation that can prove events seen by the photographer. In all of these cases, the photograph (or the reproduction of the "real") appears in its relation to memory as evocative of the past.