Memory Theatre One

1984-1985

“What Edgar seems to be making available is not just a metaphor, but a kind of aesthetic environment designed to deliver the user into the complex world of the present”.

-Ben Davis, The Age of Computer Art, Art Papers, 1985
“Robert Edgar demonstrated the potential of the computer as an art medium in what was probably the most innovative work of the year, his Memory Theatre”.

-Looking Back on the Year in the Arts, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 1986

“The user navigates his or her way around the Memory Theatre using a cursor which Edgar terms the ego. The ego changes from room to room, but each shape can be found in each of the sections of the architecture–the top ring, the bottom ring, the additive memory room, and the library. This allows Edgar to exploit a unique quality available to computer artists-he deploys user-operated visual imagery to structure verbal meaning.”

-The Memory Theatre of Robert Edgar, Artcom Electronic Magazine, 1986

 

“The Renaissance memory theatre would celebrate a remarkable comeback in the 1980s with “Memory Theatre One” by Robert Edgar. Edgar had read his Yates too, and having been introduced to adventure games by Warren Robinett, he at once imagined that the computer might be the advanced tool to revive the Renaissance memory theatre. Between 1984 and 1985 Edgar programmed the first computer-based memory theatre on an Apple II.

-Dr. Kirsten Wagner, Performative Spaces of Memory, Berlin, 2003

 

“Artist Robert Edgar makes his mark in computer art with his “Memory Theatre One.” He has succeeded not only in creating a work the utilizes and reflects the unique capacities of his medium, but also in humanizing that technology”.

-Catherine Fox, Inspired by Greeks, Atlanta Artist’s Computer Art Interacts with Viewer, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 1986

 

 

“Finally, Robert Edgar’s Memory Theatre is a computerized work of virtual sculpture. Pictured is a schematic drawing of the way computer engineers divide a floppy disk into tracks and sectors so that the central processing unit of the machine will be able to remember where it has stored information. Compare that to the architecture of the Memory Theatre.

“With his Memory Theatre One, Robert Edgar has achieved a remarkable feat. Because he is a programmer and a fine artist, he has been able to unite the verbal and visual and animate the sculptural in a work of computer art that will be a standard for years to come”.

Fred Truck, Musings on an Interactive Postmodern Metaphor, High Performance, Issue 37, 1987

 

Technical spec: Programmed in Paul Lutus’ Graforth, Apple //e, two floppy disks, 1 MHz CPU, 64K RAM, monochrome screen, two paddles or Koala pad for interfacing.

 

Robert Edgar Presents Memory Theatre One, recorded in 1986