ABSTRACT
Throughout Plato's texts, the work of memory is represented as a vital force, continuously engaged in the reconnaissance and retrieval of lost truth. In this model, wisdom is developed through speech, in active dialogue with an audience - a live connection which the encroaching technology of writing threatened to sever. The memory's essential task is that of 'unforgetting' what the soul has seen; if it fails in this charge, it capitulates to a death sentence as a warehouse of lifeless information. Although Plato compares the philosopher to a wise farmer patiently awaiting his harvest in order to emphasize the painstaking effort required in both occupations, the two professions have had very different pictorial histories. While manual labour, has been repeatedly mythologized in paintings, sculptures and photographs, mental work has resisted visualization. Over the past 40 years, however, the balance has begun to change. Television has begun to transmit images of public speakers to the general population with increasing regularity. This vast stream of talking heads represents the work of memory to mass audiences in a new way. Through its absence.
