mnemotechniques and mnemotechnologies

not inherently a dichotomy, but differing modes of taking external record of memory

• “characterizing relationships between human mnemonic and cognitive capacities (mneme) and technological prostheses (hypomnemata).” ⤴️

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mnemotechniques

• “mnemotechniques as intentional practices of externalizing memory and knowledge”
• intentionality, agency and degrees of freedom, practices “comprehensible and controllable by an individual (or community) directly and voluntarily engaged in these practices”
• “Mnemotechniques evolve in line with specific motivations which guide the creation and organization of the resulting mnemonic traces.” ⤴️
• “mnemotechniques can be described in terms of craft, which, by Tim Ingold’s definition, is a manual practice comprising “observational engagement and perceptual acuity that allow the practitioner to follow what is going on, and in turn to respond to it” (2013, p.4).” ⤴️
• “a binding connection between one’s memory and its externalized form. It results in “an associated mnemonic milieu,” where the bond between human subjects (their consciousness), the technologies through which they experience and register the world, and the material records of their experiences tend to hold strong over time.” ⤴️
• “In Stiegler’s words, mnemotechniques can be seen as a specific combination of logos and techne, which is to say, thinking and doing (2011). It is an art of actively (and practically) shaping one’s philosophy of life in relation to its always pre-existing technical dimension. ” ⤴️
• “Mnemotechniques can be seen as ways of operationalizing selected technology (language, text, imagery, sound, etc.) to produce a material trace which remains in an integral relationship with the subject (or community), [their] awareness, and beliefs.” ⤴️
• “A simple example of a mnemotechnique on a personal level could be note-taking by hand, or a drawing that results in an artifact, a material trace marked by a distinctive style (simultaneously a signifier of a close link between the technological and the human). Although the primary intention of mnemotechniques is to record and transmit the memory of a given experience, every activity that results in the externalization of knowledge into a (technical) artifact can potentially become a vector of memory, and hence, a non-intentional type of mnemotechnique. The production of a wheel, flint, or pottery is both a materialization of a person’s memory and knowledge and an encapsulation of this knowledge and experience into a physical trace or artifact. Consequently, close examination of and reflection upon these material results might reveal the knowledge invested in them, thus enabling their meaningful adoption and further transmission over time.” ⤴️

mnemotechnologies

• “Mnemotechnologies make people adapt, somewhat passively, to their internal rules, programs, and the sense of temporality they impose as opposed to making themselves adoptable to the needs, priorities, temporalities, and rhythms of the everyday lives they enter, which is what mnemotechniques facilitate.” ⤴️
• Steigler’s anti-capitalist formation of the mnemotechnological concept

problems with mnemotechnologies

• “Mnemotechnologies are those that dissociate the mediated memory and know-how skills from an individual. One’s memory and knowledge becomes disassembled and subsequently re-assembled in accordance with externally developed mechanisms of “distantly operating service industries” that “network people’s personal memories … control them, formalize them, model them, and perhaps destroy them” (Stiegler, 2010, p.68).” [⤴️](https://read.readwise.io/read/01k0y0v1maj1vrhj8e9t75d14s

formalising, standardizing, mass

• with large-scale mnemotechnological systems that organize memory the complexity surpasses individual understanding and we lose agency within it. no longer ‘individual exteriorizations’ but a indistinguishable mass ⤴️

• from web1 to web2 is from specific and personal to mass structure

• “transactional character (seemingly free space for allegedly unrestrained expression and mediation of personal memories, but in fact at the cost of infiltration and capitalization on this data by third parties)”

• “possibility for having these memories (and their emotional aura) occasionally abused, misrepresented, and their meaning significantly and irreversibly twisted. In other words, one’s specific motivation for mediating and archiving a particular moment via such mnemotechnological services as Facebook might become completely obliterated, the mediated memory might enter completely unexpected and undesired contexts.” ⤴️

• silos, platformisation

  • “mnemotechnologies are conducive to dissociated mnemonic milieux in which memories become increasingly displaced and disjointed, forming imperceptible realms, “black-boxed” enclosures inscribed with terms and conditions, often non-amendable by the subject on whose memory they scavenge.” ⤴️
  • mnemotechniques became mnemotechnologies through platformisation (Smolicki, 2017) platformisation, “compartmentalization of the web into standardized and thus easily monitorable mnemotechnological enclosures” ⤴️
  • “the web becomes clustered and compartmentalized into enclosures by big corporations that facilitate the traffic between them, and often not much outwards. Anne Helmond has called this phenomenon the “platformization of the web” (Helmond, 2015)” ⤴️## platformization
  • “on-going platformization of the web which van Dijck alternatively calls an “ecosystem of connective media” (2013, p.21).” ⤴️ - separate ecosystems though…

• capitalist priorities

  • participation in capture/storage/sharing of memory reliant on the whim of big tech
  • tech originating in specific Western contexts ” reproduce and confirm specific ways of accessing knowledge, creating and structuring accounts of the world and one’s everyday life”, globalisation not empowering, “eradication of other, diverse, smaller, local “poetics, aesthetics, and cognition in the creation of devices, databases, and infrastructures” (Srinivasan, ????, p.206).” ⤴️
  • “reinforces the dominance and reproduction of specific ontological, political, and economical motivations that these mnemotechnologies are always inherently inscribed with.” ⤴️
  • Crucially, Stiegler takes an anti-capitalist stance, discussing how mnemotechnologies dominate individual and collective attention and meaning-making (2016) ⤴️ as they “make people adapt, somewhat passively, to their internal rules, programs, and the sense of temporality they impose as opposed to making themselves adoptable to the needs, priorities, temporalities, and rhythms of the everyday lives they enter, which is what mnemotechniques facilitate.” ⤴️
  • Smolicki characterizes mnemotechnological services as instable and uncertain, advertised as ‘a permanent memory aid’ that in practise is constantly “at risk of total obsolescence or subject to unforeseen regulations.” (Smolicki, 2017)
  • sousveillance as “a form of discipline which is no longer performed by state institutions, but gets outsourced directly to citizens” ⤴️

• capitalist efficiency, need for slow labour

  • personal archiving practises have been “contaminated and instrumentalized by economic, commercial, and political agendas, as well as a doctrine of nowness, efficiency, and immediacy that drives the development of major tech-industries.” ⤴️

• hindering self-actualisation

  • ‘selfgoverned transformation and (trans-)individuation is impeded in favour of transformation conducted in accordance with the principles, expectations, and goals of the market,” ⤴️