Peter Matussek

Media Performance Memory

 

Vortrag mit Multimedia-Präsentation 14.10.2011 The Brno House of Arts (Tschechien).


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ABSTRACT

They had fallen into oblivion for centuries but now they appear more up-to-date than ever: the Memory Theatres from the 16th and 17th century. Their attempts to revitalize the scholastically stifled memory culture of the Middle Ages and to counteract the sensory deprivation of the dawning age of print are rediscovered by information designers and artists who develop strategies of staging data as an alternative to storing them like dead objects.
The lecture will discuss the Memory Theatres of Giulio Camillo (1480–1544) and Robert Fludd (1574–1637) under three different aspects: a magic, an encyclopedic and an inventive one. It will be shown that both the magical and encyclopaedic aspects cannot be transferred into the digital era because the metaphysics of a closed and centralistic cosmology that are presumed by them are no longer valid in any way. Therefore attempts to digitally adapt these arrangements are at best parodies of the original intentions – yet they occur in great numbers. They prove themselves to be rather a compensatory symptom than a cure for the digitally hypertrophied memory.
The inventive moment on the other hand can certainly be actualised when one transports the visual strategies by which the historic Memory Theatres stimulated the imagination of their visitors to the technologies of today. In this respect there are remarkable examples of computer art that could be directive for future models of visualising and staging information. They give examples of how to oppose the static model of 'storage and retrieval' with performative ways of knowledge presentation.

The lecture will discuss the Memory Theatres of Giulio Camillo (1480–1544) and Robert Fludd (1574–1637) under three different aspects: a magic, an encyclopedic and an inventive one. It will be shown that both the magical and encyclopaedic aspects cannot be transferred into the digital era because the metaphysics of a closed and centralistic cosmology that are presumed by them are no longer valid in any way. Therefore attempts to digitally adapt these arrangements are at best parodies of the original intentions – yet they occur in great numbers. They prove themselves to be rather a compensatory symptom than a cure for the digitally hypertrophied memory.

The inventive moment on the other hand can certainly be actualised when one transports the visual strategies by which the historic Memory Theatres stimulated the imagination of their visitors to the technologies of today. In this respect there are remarkable examples of computer art that could be directive for future models of visualising and staging information. They give examples of how to oppose the static model of 'storage and retrieval' with performative ways of knowledge presentation.