The human head, like that of every vertebrate, contains the organ of thought. It is enclosed in a bone capsule, the skull. This protects the gray matter and seals it off from the outside world. The brain is in contact with its environment through the perception of stimuli from the outside world by specialized cells in our sensory organs and the conversion of these stimuli into electrical signals. Complex processing procedures make it the place of thinking and feeling. The skull is its protective space. The volume of the brain corresponds to the cranial capacity.

The brain as a place of thought can be divided into various spatially delimitable areas. These individual brain areas are each characterized by specific brain functions. They support not only basic activities such as perception and action, but also more complex ones such as abstract thinking. The spatial organization of the brain into functionally specialized areas is often described metaphorically in science. Here spatial metaphors are a common type. A distinction can be made between geographical metaphors and architectural metaphors. In the first case, the technical terms range from wide to narrow, from the “Hirnhemisphäre” (brain hemisphere) down to the “Hirngrube” (brain cisterns). In the second case, the structure of the brain is described as “Hirnarchitektur” (brain architecture). Parts of the building are characterized by terms such as “Gehirnkuppel” (brain dome) or “Hirnkammer” (brain ventricles). The “Gehirnbalken” (brain beam), for example, refers to more constructive details.

However, not only the brain as a place of thought is described using spatial metaphors, but also thought in general. Architectural metaphors dominate here. The description of thought content as a “Gedankengebäude" (a building of thoughts) is probably the best known architectural metaphor in German language. In order to additionally characterize the way the brain works, the building is functionally specified and combined with activities. The brain, which collects and stores past experiences, then has “geistige Archive" (mental archives) and “Gedankenarsenale" (thoughts arsenals) in which it can search or browse in a targeted manner. In contrast to the clearly structured storage rooms stands the motif of the labyrinth, especially when it comes to creative thought processes. The appearance of the brain alone, with its numerous convolutions, seems obvious and appropriate for describing cognitive processes. Getting lost in the “Labyrinth der Gedanken” (maze of thoughts) describes the unregulated and random as a potential for unusual associations and new ideas. At this point, however, it should be mentioned that you can also stand in front of the “Ruinen seines Denkens" (ruins of your thinking).

The Greek poet and statesman Simonides of Keos is considered to be the founder of the art of memory, a technique that enabled a speaker to give well-structured and well-organized speeches without forgetting important parts. This technique is based on linking architectural locations and their furnishings with the content to be presented. While an ancient orator was giving a lecture, he would wander through a building or architectural ensemble that he remembered and that was furnished in a certain way. The order of the rooms guaranteed the correct structure of the speech and the objects and decorations contained the corresponding content.

The work “Rhetorica ad Herennium”, from the 1st century BC, is written by an unknown author on rhetoric, which included mnemonics or the art of memory. It provides precise information on how the imagined places (loci) and the details contained therein, which he describes as images (imagines), must be created. His rules are guidelines for what he calls an “artificial memory”, a power of memory strengthened and trained through practice. These rules for building up a fictitious structure and linking it to content are still today one of the most effective memory and association techniques, known as the Loci Method.

At the beginning of his treatise on memory, the author praises it as a “treasure trove” (LIBRE III, XVI). He then goes on to explain what he calls artificial memory. The basis for this is formed by places and images. Under places he subsumes “for example, a house, an intercolumnar space, a recess, an arch, or the like." (Ibid.) The places should be laid out in a row, if possible without people, as they would only be a disturbance and they should be distinguishable, too much similarity would only lead to confusion. The sides should not be too big or too small, too light or too dark and should have a moderate distance between them. According to these rules, the trained person is free to create the number and suitable shapes of squares. "For the imagination can embrace any region whatsoever and in it at will fashion and construct the setting of a particular place."(ibid.)

The author conceives the images that are to be provided for the imagined places as “(...) a figure, mark, or portrait of the object we wish to remember". ( ibid.) They also follow certain rules. It is important that the images are similar to the things that are to be remembered. This similarity can apply to things as well as to concepts. In order for the images to stimulate memory, they must be concise and powerful. "When we see in everyday life things that are petty, ordinary, and banal, we generally fail to remember them, because the mind is not being stirred by anything novel or marvellous. But if we see or hear something exceptionally base, dishonourable, extraordinary, great, unbelievable, or laughable, that we are likely to remember for a long time. “ (Libre III, XXII) The images thus remain in our memory for a long time and can be recalled if certain principles of exaggeration and alienation are applied, ”(... )if we assign to them exceptional beauty or singular ugliness; if we dress some of them with crowns or purple cloaks, for example, so that the likeness may be more distinct to us; or if we somehow disfigure them, as by introducing one stained with blood or soiled with mud or smeared with red paint, so that its form is more striking, or by assigning certain comic effects to our images, for that, too, will ensure our remembering them more readily. " (ibid.)

The art of memory, based on the Loci Method, the imagination of places and images, became topical during the English Renaissance. For the English philosopher and physician Robert Fludd, memory can only be improved artificially through medication or imagination. However, he opposed the free invention of places of memory, as considered in the Rhetorica ad Herenium. In his opinion, fictional places only confuse the memory, which is why a memory system should be based on real places and architecture. He calls his places of memory theaters, but by this he only means the stage with a façade surrounding it, in reference to ancient Roman theater architecture. The façade has several storeys and is divided by columns and doors, similar to the front of a palace. Five doors in the façade and five opposing columns with different cross-sections of the bases, form the spatial ensemble through which things and concepts are to be remembered.

The image of a display façade, as explained by Fludd, is quoted by Groh's work. Arranged in a semicircle and thus opening up space, the mirrored view of a two-storey façade situation creates a stage character. However, contrary to the recommendations, it is not unambiguous, but rather unclear, dark and mysterious. A torn open house front can be recognized, which allows a view of the shadowed cavity behind it. The negativity of the ruin stands in contrast to the former wholeness of the architectural structure. However, it is not to be seen in the sense of a lack or loss that refers to a past. Instead of memory and reconstruction, it is an offer and opens up a view of the possible: the destroyed, broken architecture as a shelter and home for inventive thinking, as an open space for imagination an invitation to create the singular and the unique against restricted possibilities of experience.The linear graphic below the architectural image that we are looking at also provides an indication of filling the violated architecture with images. It shows a rectangle with different geometric figures on one side - the five different bases of the columns? The floor plan of a stage?

In Rhetorica ad Herennium, the author recommends the invention of images that do not represent the ordinary but rather the “new and striking”. He therefore recommends using images “(...) that are not mute or vague, but doing something." (ibid.) This refers to an active quality of the image, an activity of its own, which should stimulate thought. In Groh's work, an object is suspended, as if floating, in front of the imaginary symmetrical axis of the backdrop-like depiction of the architectural structure in the real box space. It corresponds to the criteria just mentioned. The conglomerate of heterogeneous materials, of a dull, rusty structure and a shimmering web demands attention. The intrinsic value of the materials in combination with their amorphous design results in a wealth of associations and thus the impact of the object.

Groh has named his work “Treasure House of Inventions” in reference to the remarks on mnemonics. So is the central object in its dazzling appearance such a treasure, which is lifted and presented from a fictitious structure, in this case an architectural one, in which it was hoarded? Does the object as an invention visualize an imagined idea and thus the complex imaginative acts in the memory of one's own thinking? In more general terms, does it represent the neuronal thicket in our skull that determines our individual thoughts and actions?

The idea of entering the spaces and fictitious architectures located in our brain and moving around in them - whereby the intensity of the movement, which is a search, can vary greatly- and filling these spaces with the images and ideas sought and found, this idea of a productive theater of memory is the basis of Wolfgang Groh's work. With the chosen signs, the mysteriousness of the place and the ambiguity of the image, with this central object and its significant characteristics, he passes on the central question of this work to the viewer: How can the sites of thought be thought?