As someone with a memory which fails to think in a linear fashion as others do and who can never remember important dates or times it would seem that I am a prime candidate for technologies that alleviate this experience through hypomnesis as described by Bernard Steigler in ‘Anamnesis and Hypomnesis’. (Steigler, 2008) I forget doctors appointments meetings with friends, bill payments etc., but somehow in the midst of all this I am able to remember long sequences of numbers. And not just some sequences but many, from my medicare card number to credit card details and the exhaustively long sequence required using Telstra Telecard. For me the externalising process involves a singing of the sequence so as to create a readily recalled tune. Each phone number rather than being merely digits is a song. This is much like Alan Kay’s Youtube video on learning where a woman learned to play tennis, not through examining the technical aspect of the forehand, backhand and serve but through externalising her mind through vocalisation. (Kay,2008) My experience with missed appointments might then be due to the fact that the part of my brain responsible for such functions doesn’t speak the language of the appointment (Kay 2008), which also is in the unfortunate position of not being particularly melodious. Maybe the part that does store this information is the same area that lights up when I listen to a song as suggested by Alva Noe in her work titled ‘Does Thinking Happen in the Brain?”. (2010, 13:7) If this is the case, and I have no hope of singing all my appointments into my head, then technologies that help extend the mind might help.
I assume that many people retain and protain simultaneously as I do, but in the highly visual world in which I live I do not require technologies to assist me in my pursuit of the perfectly merchandised window (this is my day job) yet I still use them. If merchandising is to be considered sculpture then what I am undeniably doing is externalising my mind. The relationship between the evolving display and my memory is reciprocal. A medium must be reached between what is imagined and what is possible. The end result is an articulation of both my retention and protention. I have a vision of what might evolve and the memory of how to achieve it, but at the same time I use my phone to take photos of interesting arrangements in other locations so that If I don’t quite remember then a piece of technology will. This is what Andrew Murphy refers to as the dynamic ecology of virtual memory, an interplay between natural and virtual memory. (Murphie, 2011)
This also raises issues surrounding the concept of the “cyborg” in that my phone becomes both a mental and a biological extension of myself. (Clark, 2010) I welcome discussion on this point.
References:
Clark, Andy (2010) ‘Natural-born Cyborgs? Reflections on Bodies, Minds and Human Enhancement’, http://vimeo.com/16717229 (accessed 22/3/11)
Kay, Alan, (2008) ‘Alan Kay on Learning’, Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50L44hEtVos (accessed 22/3/11)
Murphie, Andrew (2011) ‘Lecture Four Globalisation of Memory via Media (pdf)’, http://arts3091.newsouthblogs.org/files/2011/02/3091_2011_lec4_memory_web.pdf , (accessed 22/3/11)
Noë, Alva (2010) ‘Does thinking happen in the brain?’, 13:7 Cosmos and Culture http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/12/10/131945848/does-thinking-happen-in-the- brain (accessed 22/3/11)
Stiegler, Bernard (n.d.) (2010) ‘Anamnesis and Hypomnesis: Plato as the first thinker of the proletarianisation’ http://arsindustrialis.org/anamnesis-and-hypomnesis (accessed 22/3/11)
No comments:
Post a Comment