MAS 961 · Designing Sociable Media
Instructor: Judith Donath

04.25 · time and history

readings

Further (optional) reading

assignment   · paragraphs here

This week we will be discussing how the passage of time and activity can leave a trace in the digital world.

1. Please read the Hill and Hollan and the Wexelblat papers. Some chapters from Aveni are available outside room 449 and you may find them interesting.

2. Find an example of something that shows the wear of human action, a history of human events. How much of this history is legible - can you tell the story from the object? What makes it interesting? (This can be any sort of object. If you are seeking inspiration, the optional readings discuss this at a range in scale from small object to house to city - and from inanimate object to human face). Write a few paragraphs about the thing you observed.

3. We will be discussing the design of "history enriched digital objects" in class. Since you should be hard at work on your final projects so there is only a minimal written assignment, I would like you to be thinking about this design problem and be prepared to discuss it.

Please submit the URL of your paragraphs online by Monday evening. Copies of the readings are available outside of E15-449.