Landscape and spatial configurations have been used as mnemotechnical
media in various cultures. One of such mnemotechnical
systems was invented in ancient Greece. In the process of memorizing a
speech, the rhetoricians were advised to imagine a house with several rooms,
each room with conventional loci where to imagine a picture representing
a subject of the prepared discourse. While speaking, the rhetorician imagined
a path for walking from one picture to another, which he would follow in
the course of his speech. Hence, the linearity
of speech corresponds to the linearity of the path from room to room.
Another example of a spatially based mnemotechnical device is a system
invented by the Australian Aborigines. This system consists of paths connected
in a network which they call Songlines. The traditional knowledge of these
tribes is mediated by songs in which the verses follow an ordering that
is analogous to a journey inwhich the traveler orients him- or herself
by landmarks. These landmarksare present in the real living space of the
Aborigines and are connected according to a linear schema. Both systems
use space and everyday experience in space as a tool of remembering, but
they differ in a fundamental aspect. Imagining a house with rooms and loci
for pictures follows a concept of space as a container with fixed boundaries.
The imagination of networked paths as used
by the Aborigines, is not a territory with boundaries,but a complex net
of lines and pathways. The difference between the ancient and the Aboriginal
concept may be summarized by the formula: CONTAINER,CLOSURE, LINEARITY
vs. OPENESS; NETWORK; LINEARITY. These different spatial concepts can also
be observed both in metaphorical concepts
which refer to the architecture of text and in the discoursive space of
text
and hypertext.
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