The “All the Bits” repsonsive site, based on the forthcoming documentary, explores memories we have created over the years… and the technology we’ve used to document them. What happens when technology becomes outdated and unsupported?
Mobile view of the responsive site
The user is introduced to the largely technological subject, through recalling memories they've had related to the recording devices.
"How did your parents record your home movies?" for example... Then based on the user's answer, we can place them within a window on the "All the Bits... Timeline" detailing the history of the different tools we've used to record information and memories, examples of each and social context.
Mobile View of the responsive site
Desktop view of the responsive "All the Bits... Timeline" - Example audio from a Wax Cylinder
Once they've found their place amongst obsolesence, they have several options to interact with the content
1. They can submit stories around their experiences with memories associated with the different mediums. In this example, a user talks about her unsupported VHS tapes being the link to remembering her grandmother who's recently passed.
Desktop view of the responsive "All the Bits... Timeline" - Example user submitted content
2. Connect to a community of individuals and larger society who share a similar struggle... Like this case where NASA had endless reels of magnetic tape storing high resolution images of the moon, that had never seen the light of day due to archaic format, but a persistent employee asked to take on the task of storing and updating to a usable format.
3. Individuals can help eachother free these memories, by providing expertise on updating them to a contemporary, usable medium.
Ultimately, we want to get a dialog started about the emphemerality of any format and get real about modern times: it's not just a problem of the analog past; Digital archiving, and ownership of our individual and social intellectual and sentimental property, will be a challenge we will need to address in the near future.
