By Other Means

This is actually an interesting time to have this assignment since I attended an all day scrapbooking festival yesterday. While there, I kept my ideas in mind and looked for ways that a capstone could improve the scrapbooking experience. All through the day, the women there would ask what other's were working on, and would usually tell a story about the event. I believe that the story telling aspect of scrapbooking is one of the most important parts, and one of the values that I would like to maintain whether the project is digital or not.

The part of my project that i am particularly interested in is creating a history of events and memories using scrapbooks. Most people are not remembered in the grand scheme of things, except by family and friends. What if there was a way to create a history that allowed these people to speak out about themselves and let others know who they really are? Not only would this be good to have so that others can learn about a person, but it would also be a great way to learn more about everyday events that go on in peoples lives, and to see on a larger scale how that event fits into life.

As an alternative vision of my project, I would start by creating a timeline at a scrapbooking event like the one I was at yesterday. This would be a massive timeline, drawn out either on a large sheet of paper hung on the wall, or on the wall itself. I would divide the timeline into decades and years, leaving plenty of blank space. Then, I would let the scrapbookers fill in the rest. They would take pictures of the events that meant a lot to them and tape them to the proper part of the timeline. Each person could have a different color that would be the background matting for the pictures. Underneath, they would write a short story describing the event and something interesting and unique about it. In the end, there would be a large timeline that would include all the events in history that are important to us. After they are all posted, we could look through and discuss the events, learning more about each other by seeing what is important in our lives. Because of the colors, we would be able to see how many different people are involved, view people's individual legacy's, and see how some people could have more important events in one decade than perhaps another.

I think this project would speak in the same ways as a digital one since it is still about sharing stories and creating your own legacy. With this timeline, you would be able to share the events important to you with others who have also shared their stories. This would be like creating a time capsule that others could happen upon years from now to see what was important to people in that area. It would be interesting to take a project like this into a larger city and posting it on a wall like graffiti is. Passersby could add a picture and a description, or as many as they want. I think it would be neat to see if people were at the same events, and the different takes on them. Creating a timeline like this would really be a different twist on the traditional histories that are written.