10-6-99

Dear Ben Davis,

Thank you for the address and e-mail of The Atlanta Art Papers. I will

try to receive the article by The Art Papers. Maybe my inquiry will be

successful. So, please, stop looking for the article for the next few

days ... .

You really must be wondering why I did not ask Robert for the article.

Actually, I thought of asking him, but the prospect to get personally in

contact with the author of the review of Memory Theater One appeared to be more

attractive.

Furthermore, Robert told me that you are a good source for any research

in the area of the ars memoriae in connection with electronic media.

Just let me outline my investigations on this topic, and you will

understand why I was particularly interested in establishing contact

with you. One of the main questions that has occupied my mind during the

last months was the question why the ars memoriae did become such an

important paradigm. Accordingly, I`ve traced and gathered any quotation

of the mnemonics I could get hold of. Beside Robert`s Memory Theatre One

and another artwork and Memory Theater by Agnes Hegedüs, I came across

the ars memoriae in the writings of Nicholas Negroponte, Jaron Lanier,

and Neil Spiller. Marcos Novak refers indirectly to Frances Yates. Not

least, you also refer to the mnemonics in some of your other articles,

for example in the article about Image Learning.

What does preoccupy me regarding those different authors and approaches

to the ars memoriae is the question who did come up with the ars

memoriae and Frances Yates` seminal book on its history. As far as I

know Robert Edgar has been one of the first who has made the mnemonics

accessible to the media folk. Please correct me if I am not right. The

other one might have been Nicholas Negroponte who in his book Being

Digital which was published in 1995, quotes Simonides of Keos in one

of the chapters that deal with interface design and the spatial

organization of information. In so far as the Architecture Machine Group

at MIT has developed the spatial data management in the seventies,

Negroponte might have allowed electronic media and interface design

benefit from the mnemonics much more earlier than Robert has done. It

might also be the case that Negroponte projected the story of Simonides

to the spatial data management only afterwards.

And now you come into play, because Robert has told me that you went to

MIT in the eighties after reviewing Memory Theater One. Could you remember whether

the people there (including Nicholas Negroponte) were acquainted with

Frances Yates` writings ? Or did you introduce Robert Edgar`s artwork

and the mnemonics to them?

I would be most grateful for any information you can give me. There is

no hurry.

Thank you very much for your trouble.

Kirsten Wagner

Lubeck, Germany