Places of oblivion. Visualising ruins on social media

Abstract

This article focuses on the visualization of ruins in the digital environment, drawing on materials from Russian and international publications dedicated to abandoned places. The main emphasis is on the visual practice of “urban explorers” who share their photographs under the hashtag #urbex (urban exploration). The article analyzes the visual strategies employed in representing ruins, as well as the phenomenon of their popularity in social media. In contrast to “sites of memory” as conceptualized by Pierre Nora, which refer to objects that connect the past and present through commemoration, deteriorating places can be described as “sites of oblivion” – a form of expulsion from collective memory and societal life. While sites of memory may encompass ruins that hold significance for national identity, sites of oblivion refer to ruins on the periphery of historical memory, which society has lost interest in. Followers of the UrbEx movement are particularly drawn to these forgotten places, which they essentially rediscover for the world. Today, ruins have become an integral part of visual culture, both in mass media and artistic expression, aimed at individual expression. This is evident in disaster films, video games, and the numerous photographs shared by bloggers, who replicate established genre codes and reference widely circulating cultural texts. Images of ruins can evoke the past, bearing witness to former grandeur, document present decline, or serve as warnings of impending disasters. However, in these photographs, different temporalities often intersect, overlap, and permeate each other. Abandoned artifacts trigger memories and evoke intersecting temporalities in the imagination. The history of a place is shaped by experiences, memory, oblivion, politics, encounters, and myth-making. This expands our understanding of the urban environment as an ever-changing construct.