The Art of Memory
2018-present. Multi-part series. Part I: Seals (complete). Part II: Palace (in progress).
The Art of Memory is an ongoing, multi-part series I began in the winter of 2018 based on my fascination with the work of Giordano Bruno, a 16th century Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, and cosmological theorist. Bruno worked extensively on the 'art of memory', a tradition and technique for memory recall originally developed by the ancient Greeks. While the art of memory is largely a lost art, there has been a recent resurgence of interest in this mental technique. There's even contemporary annual competitions like the World Memory Championship.
For the Greeks, Bruno, and others working on the art of memory, the art focused on impressing places and images on memories, such that a specific memory - say, the lines of a poem - could be mentally linked to a mind's eye picture of a specific place and the objects that inhabit it - say, the particular arrangement of furniture in one's living room. By assigning one line per furniture item, for example, one could recite a poem by mentally 'walking through' the furniture in one's living room in the correct order. This mental representation is called a "memory palace"; the place where your memories are stored. Years ago when I first started reading about Bruno, I went to the MET and built a memory palace in the ancient Greek section, assigning concepts I was studying at the time to particular statues. While much of it has faded (like any palace, a memory palace requires upkeep), the snarling lion statue will always remind me of the idea that all self contained systems naturally decline into disorder (the second law of thermodynamics).
The art of memory has many forms and iterations, and has been practiced by some of the greatest minds in Western history including Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Descartes, and Leibniz. It is no surprise that this technique was used by Cicero, renown orator of his time. Some, like Bruno, claimed practicing the art of memory could even reshape the psyche to a higher more evolved form, to an enlightened state of consciousness.
Recent evidence in neuroscience supports the notion that memory and place have a special mental link: place cells and grid cells in the hippocampus - the memory center of the brain - emit a particular and repeatable pattern of activation when we (mammals) occupy the same spaces and territories, creating a sort of 'mental map'. If this is true for physical spaces, I suspect grid cells and places cells likely support the building of memory palaces as well.
A renaissance man before his time, Bruno was executed by burning in the year 1600. He was 51 years old. His crime? Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith, and for believing Earth was but one of many inhabited worlds in our universe.
The Art of Memory is an ongoing, multi-part series I began in the winter of 2018 based on my fascination with the work of Giordano Bruno, a 16th century Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, and cosmological theorist. Bruno worked extensively on the 'art of memory', a tradition and technique for memory recall originally developed by the ancient Greeks. While the art of memory is largely a lost art, there has been a recent resurgence of interest in this mental technique. There's even contemporary annual competitions like the World Memory Championship.
For the Greeks, Bruno, and others working on the art of memory, the art focused on impressing places and images on memories, such that a specific memory - say, the lines of a poem - could be mentally linked to a mind's eye picture of a specific place and the objects that inhabit it - say, the particular arrangement of furniture in one's living room. By assigning one line per furniture item, for example, one could recite a poem by mentally 'walking through' the furniture in one's living room in the correct order. This mental representation is called a "memory palace"; the place where your memories are stored. Years ago when I first started reading about Bruno, I went to the MET and built a memory palace in the ancient Greek section, assigning concepts I was studying at the time to particular statues. While much of it has faded (like any palace, a memory palace requires upkeep), the snarling lion statue will always remind me of the idea that all self contained systems naturally decline into disorder (the second law of thermodynamics).
The art of memory has many forms and iterations, and has been practiced by some of the greatest minds in Western history including Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Descartes, and Leibniz. It is no surprise that this technique was used by Cicero, renown orator of his time. Some, like Bruno, claimed practicing the art of memory could even reshape the psyche to a higher more evolved form, to an enlightened state of consciousness.
Recent evidence in neuroscience supports the notion that memory and place have a special mental link: place cells and grid cells in the hippocampus - the memory center of the brain - emit a particular and repeatable pattern of activation when we (mammals) occupy the same spaces and territories, creating a sort of 'mental map'. If this is true for physical spaces, I suspect grid cells and places cells likely support the building of memory palaces as well.
A renaissance man before his time, Bruno was executed by burning in the year 1600. He was 51 years old. His crime? Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith, and for believing Earth was but one of many inhabited worlds in our universe.
Part I: Seals
As a promoter, teacher, and progressor of the art, Bruno published numerous texts on the art of memory. Most relevant here is Bruno's text Thirty Seals, originally published in 1583. This text was compiled as a job application to Oxford (an appointment he did not receive, to his embarrassment), and includes the descriptions of 30 'seals', or geometric designs. These designs are based on a combination of visual principles in geometry, astrology, cosmology, Catalan mysticism, and medieval psychology. According to Bruno, these seals encapsulate the physical geometries necessary for any memory palace task or technique. Each seal has a name which refers to its function, and like a wax seal, is designed to bear the impressions of specific content. Bruno introduces the book with the following instructions: "You have here, most illustrious and excellent Lords, a group of 30 Seals which can be skillfully used to bring into balance inquiry, invention and retention."
As a visual artist I was naturally attracted to the idea of a set of designs which can encompass all knowledge, so I went looking for them. Bruno's Thirty Seals, in reality, is a mostly-text-description book with a few rudimentary drawings. It is unclear whether the full set of seals were lost to history, or if they ever even existed outside of Bruno's own mind. So I decided to give visual life to these seals for the first time, guided by Bruno's notes and by his love of symmetry, precision, and magical thinking.
Click the seal images below to view their title and enlarge. Each seal is printed 8" x 8" on aluminum.
As a visual artist I was naturally attracted to the idea of a set of designs which can encompass all knowledge, so I went looking for them. Bruno's Thirty Seals, in reality, is a mostly-text-description book with a few rudimentary drawings. It is unclear whether the full set of seals were lost to history, or if they ever even existed outside of Bruno's own mind. So I decided to give visual life to these seals for the first time, guided by Bruno's notes and by his love of symmetry, precision, and magical thinking.
Click the seal images below to view their title and enlarge. Each seal is printed 8" x 8" on aluminum.
All images © Julia Buntaine Hoel
