The following article was front page on a recent MX newspaper (the freebie one handed out at train stations each evening in Melbourne and Sydney).
"People today have thousands of photos they don't organise or archive and in the end don't use because they find it too overwhelming,'' van den Hoven said.
Interesting concept of making the digital physical, to recognise its meaning.
by: Cathy Morris, mX
27 August 2013
Photos need place in digital world. Source: Supplied
WE used to treasure a framed photograph - but with the world going digital, how will we keep our memories alive in the future?
WE used to treasure a framed photograph - but with the world going digital, how will we keep our memories alive in the future?
People are increasingly snap-happy, but ask them to find a shot they took a few years ago and many will struggle to find it, University of Technology Sydney associate professor Elise van den Hoven told mX.
She said research had found people cherished actual physical objects. A photo on the mantelpiece could jog your memory and bring back a moment in time every time you walked past it.
But if something was hidden by a computer screen it didn't have the same effect.
"People today have thousands of photos they don't organise or archive and in the end don't use because they find it too overwhelming,'' van den Hoven said.
That's not to say that digital can't bring memories flooding back, but "you have to use it''.
Van den Hoven is researching ways to bring the digital and physical world together.
She said digital had some advantages over print - it can be animated, doesn't fade in the sunlight and the quality can be much better.
But it's about turning those memories into objects we can utilise in our everyday lives.
For example, van den Hoven said you could have a cube that could be held in your hand which brings up different but related pictures every time you shook it.
Or a diamond-shaped object sitting on the table that displays your Facebook photos to your dinner party guests.
"The main thing for me is how can we combine the physical and digital to support people's everyday remembering," she said.
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