I found this great rendition of Bruno's memory theater.

http://ianjwpollard.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/frail-things-in-eternal-places/

Frail things in Eternal Places

Francis Yates' conjectural reconstruction of Giordano Bruno's Memory Wheel

The following is an edited extract from my M.Arch thesis, entitled Dialogues: Architecture’s Origin in Language

“Now if the ancient orators, wishing to place from day to day the parts of the speeches which they had to recite, confided them to frail places as frail things, it is right that we, wishing to store up eternally the eternal nature of all things which can be expressed in speech [...] should assign them to eternal places”[1]
Giulio Camillo (1550)

If the exchange of ideas between architecture, the arts, and the sciences may be described as a trichotomy, it is certainly a complex, fascinating and relevant group of interactions to examine. And if this thesis is an attempt to extricate, firstly, a set of themes through which Architecture may be compared to language, and second, to investigate and question those themes, then it is within the subject of memory that we encounter a most difficult theme. Memory and language are interconnected, even interdependent. Theirs is an interaction studied in disciplines from cognitive neuroscience to philosophy, linguistics and literature. But how does memory, then, relate to architecture, if it does at all? In what ways does it relate? Does its relation exist in the exchange of metaphors or , alternatively, can architecture be a physical manifestation of memories? In the history of architecture memory has been understood, employed and denied in dramatically different ways.

“There are but two strong conquerers of the forgetfulness of men, Poetry and Architecture” [2]
John Ruskin (1849)

In this trichotomy, for example, a considerable number of the concepts in the study of memory in science and art have been borrowed, through translation, from architecture; this is due in part to the development of the Arts of Memory from Cicero, to the Rennaisance scholars Giordano Bruno and Giulio Camillo, and later to Robert Fludd 4. The legacy of their work, pioneering, beautiful and profound, can be observed somewhat obliquely in the commonly used English language phrase in the first place. This association of memory with space is a mnemonic device, known as the Method of Loci, in which the content of memories may be ordered and retrieved from a imagined, or drawn set of spatial relationships, memories stored in virtual rooms. In the first place refers to the memorised idea, phrase or otherwise contained within the first such room in a series. This series of rooms does not need to be chronological, but can resemble a complex, fractal like plan, or indeed a multitude of forms. Geometry, and the great body of study that has been undertaken in pursuit of further understanding of it, is a strong influence in the mysterious arts of memory .

Giulio Camillo's Memory Theatre

Most, if not all, notable examples of mnemonic spaces through history were those of the immaterial; existing solely for, and in, the imagination. This, after all, is their primary purpose; to structure memory and to systematically arrange information. There is, however, a intruiging exception. Camillo’s mysterious treatise, L’Idea del Theatro [5], outlines within in however the design of a physical structure that was a large scale model of a theatre of memory of the greatest proportions, an ambition somewhat lost to history.

Discussed above, the Method of Loci is an example of the translation of ideas in architecture to another discipline; the study of memory as a rhetorical art. How does architecture gain in this ‘economy of ideas’, if at all?

“Architecture is for Remembering/Architecture is for Forgetting” [3]
Douglas Darden (1991)

Firstly, architecture may exist as the symbolic host to memory; in the form of the monument [6]. Monuments have a specific symbolic function and in them can be observed explicit intentions; remembrance of individuals, groups or events by setting a memory of them in a physical structure. They can be both an abstract or realistic representation of these figures and happenings. Paradoxically, of course, the figures and events commemorated in many of the greatest ancient monuments have been forgotten, and the structure built to preserve our memory of them becomes instead a monument to their ironic anonymity.

Author's drawn research into related theatre typologies

Douglas Darden, in his “turning over” of the “architectural canons”[7] , which he presents as the volume Condemned Building [8], investigates this paradox with the project Temple Forgetful and its accompanying maxim; “Architecture is for Remembering/Architecture is for Forgetting” [9] Here Darden sets in opposition two contrasting theatre-like forms in remembrance of Romulus and Remus, the sparring brothers of Rome.

The modernists may have rejected the concerns of memory in architecture, but due, in part, to the work of Aldo Rossi there came about a renewed interest in the city’s relation with memory. This relation Memory is explored further in the investigation Memory Theatre, which questions whether memory is maybe not such a frail thing after all…

The best Ong quote.

Writing weakens the mind.  Ong page 78.

I think it would be fun to make a sticker of this and put it on all they writing profs doors.  Just the little devil in me coming out I guess.

Anamnesis: the remembering of thing from a supposed previous existence.

Wouldn't it be interesting that if you were constantly being reborn with a full knowledge of all the experiences of your previous lives.  Just were would the human species be today?  Insane.  Think about it if you knew that you were just going to be reborn again and again to experience life until this body failed than gain another what would keep you from it.  You would know that it never ends you just change bodies and continue on.

Iconoclasm[1] is the deliberate destruction of religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually with religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes. The term encompasses the more specific destruction of images of a ruler after his death or overthrow (damnatio memoriae), for example, following Akhenaten's death in Ancient Egypt.
People who engage in or support iconoclasm are called "iconoclasts", a term that has come to be applied figuratively to any person who challenges established dogma or conventions. Conversely, people who revere or venerate religious images are (by iconoclasts) called "iconolaters". In a Byzantine context, they are known as "iconodules", or "iconophiles".
Iconoclasm may be carried out by people of a different religion, but is often the result of sectarian disputes between factions of the same religion. The two Byzantine outbreaks during the 8th and 9th centuries were unusual in that the use of images was the main issue in the dispute, rather than a by-product of wider concerns. In Christianity, iconoclasm has generally been motivated by people who adopt a literal interpretation of the Ten Commandments, which forbid the making and worshipping of "graven images." The degree of iconoclasm among Christian sects has varied greatly.

I found these flytings online while looking online.



Yo mama is so fat
Yo mama is so fat, when she orders the buffet, she just pulls up a chair.
Yo mama is so fat, when she bungee jumps, she brings down the bridge.
Yo mama is so fat, she had to go to Sea World to get baptized
Yo mama is so fat, when she goes to a restaurant, they don't give her a menu, they give her an estimate.
Yo mama is so fat, she has smaller women orbiting around her.
Yo mama is so fat, when she puts on a yellow raincoat, people shout "Taxi!"
Yo mama is so fat, she's in competition with the whales.
Yo mama is so fat, she jumped on America and caused the Grand Canyon.
Yo mama is so fat, when she walked past the TV, I missed four hour-long specials.
Yo mama is so fat, when she steps in an elevator, it has to go down.
Yo mama is so fat, she stepped on the scales and it read "One at a time please"
Yo mama is so fat, when God said "Let there be light" he told her to move out of the way
Yo mama is so fat, when she bungee jumps, she plunges straight down to hell.
Yo mama is so fat she mistook a jar of mayonnaise for a jar of aspirins
Yo mama is so fat, when she tries walking through a door, she needs to be greased.
Yo mama is so fat, people mistake her for the earth
Yo mama is so fat, McDonald's went rich in one sitting when she visited.
Yo mama is so fat, she sat on the dock and made it sink!


Yo mama is so stupid
Yo mama is so stupid, she asked the number for 911.
Yo mama is so stupid, when she said "What's the letter after X" and I said "Y" she said "Because I wanna know."
Yo mama is so stupid, she got locked in a grocery store, and starved.
Yo mama is so stupid, she thought Boyz II Men was a daycare center.
Yo mama is so stupid, a microscope wouldn't be able to see her brain.
Yo mama is so stupid, she put lipstick on her head, just to make up her mind.
Yo mama is so stupid, she dots her t's and crosses her o's.
Yo mama is so stupid, when she hears it's chilly outside, she brings a bowl.
Yo mama is so stupid, she got fired from the M&M factory for throwing away the W's.
Yo mama so stupid, she brought a spoon to the super bowl!
Yo mama is so stupid, she tried to drown a fish
Yo mama is so stupid, she used a ruler to see how long she slept.


Yo mama is so hairy
Yo mama is so hairy, Big Foot takes pictures of her.
Yo mama is so hairy, Furbies hide in her armpits.
Yo mama is so hairy, when she went to the barbers, she got charged 100,000,000,000,000 grand!!!!!!!

If you would have asked me if I had ever done this before this class I would have said sure but not really been able to tell you when.  Now that I've thought about it over the last couple of days I can remember sitting around with my friends firing off these one liners until someone failed to respond.  Oh the well spent time of my youth.

My bedroom, as you come through the door a jewelry amoure sits to the left.  A king sized water bed with a oak bookcase headboard dominates the center of the room.  On each side of it are white 4 drawer dressers.  His and her closets run down the south wall while the door to the master bath is set in the west wall.

I used my drive way to create my memory palace for the 50 items we had to memorize.  I started my breaking my cards down to blocks of 4, as this was the way I leaned them.  Then I choose 13 locations in my drive way, stair way, door, and a large rock next to the door to place my images.  This worked great in my mind.  After actually doing it I found some areas I that could have been done easier.  First don't use things that you can't add action to.  I used cars for jacks and Kiss album covers for aces,  this made it a lot harder to create interaction with the other images.