A project by Mark Selby.
Photographs can act as powerful mnemonic representations of our personal memories, indicative of time, place and experience. However as digital photographic technologies strive for ease, convenience and instantaneity, photographs are mass–produced. The camera democratizes experience, recording differing experiences in identical ways. Often not valued as memories, photographs become mundane representations of unremarkable and unfamiliar events whose mnemonic value is increasingly diluted.
Photographic Memories is an ongoing project that intends to make photography an integral component of experience. Like the map, or the ticket, the camera becomes necessary to the journey. Here photography encourages the experience of travel, capturing it in ways more appropriate to the activity.
Oct 19
Notes from Mike Michael’s Technoscience and everyday life.
The key idea here is that most everyday technologies aspire towards optimal function, or labour saving. Michael argues that this has the effect of robbing us of significant learning experiences and dilutes the richness of our everyday experiences.
The digital camera is an excellent example of a technology that is designed for optimal function.
