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Artificial Memory and Orienting Infinity

Paper Kei Kreutler
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Kreutler traces the historical concept of artificial memory from classical rhetoric through contemporary digital systems, arguing that computing has fundamentally transformed how intention and knowledge are recorded and preserved. The paper examines how artificial memory systems create permanent traces of human activity that exceed natural memory's capacity, revising Agrippa's ancient concerns about memory's fragility in the age of technological mediation.

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Research Salon with Kei Kreutler | Artificial Memory and Orienting Infinity

Kei Kreutler presents her Summer of Protocols research essay 'Artificial Memory and Orienting Infinity,' tracing a history of artificial memory from the method of loci and Renaissance memory theaters (Camillo, Giulio Bruno) through Turing machines and the invention of Random Access Memory. She introduces a framework distinguishing 'latent memory' from 'living memory' and 'taxonomic' from 'associative' arrangement, arguing for a sensibility she calls 'orientation' that enables navigating partial, associative cues rather than relying on the metaphor of memory-as-data.

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