Skip to content

Memory Research Group

Talk Kia

Keler (Kia) launches the Memory Research Group, a Summer of Protocols special interest group, outlining its focus on how memory concepts get conflated across neuroscience, computing, philosophy, and anthropology. She traces a lineage from Francis Yates's 'Art of Memory' and classical memory palaces through associative/taxonomic divides (Raymond Lull, Giordano Bruno) to contemporary bioelectric memory research (Michael Levin), Edwin Hutchins's distributed cognition, Buddhist models of memory as ethical construction, and Bernard Stiegler's technics-as-exteriorized-memory, arguing memory is fundamentally distributed across agents and environments rather than stored discretely.

Related resources

Article

A Very Short Introduction to Memory

The Memory Research Group, a special interest group incubated by Summer of Protocols, launches a monthly series examining memory across disciplines, starting with Frances Yates' classical account of the art of memory. Rather than debating whether machines should automate memorization, the group investigates how contemporary tools reshape our understanding of memory itself, moving beyond surface-level recall toward deeper modes of knowing.

article memory organizations

Kei Kreutler

Article

Images of Memory

Kei Kreutler examines how cultural metaphors shape our understanding of computational memory, from HAL 9000's glowing tapes to USB drives and magnetic tape archives. The Memory Research SIG explores these memory metaphors across disciplines through bi-weekly discussions, inviting readers to engage with how we conceptualize memory in LLMs and earlier computing systems.

article memory organizations

Kei Kreutler

Article

Memory Research Group Six Months

The Memory Research Group convened over six months to read texts about memory in reverse chronological order, from classical techniques through digital AI systems and back to physical substrates, tracing which contemporary memory problems are genuinely new versus recurring under different names. The group met biweekly with interdisciplinary participants from neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, architecture, and design to understand how memory operates differently across contexts rather than develop a unified theory.

article memory organizations

Kei Kreutler