Physical and Digital
The first photo class I took in college was black and white film photography. After that everything was purely digital. My school even got rid of half the dark room because they needed space for a bigger digital print lab. If it hadn’t been required to print our photos for critique, I probably never would have. Over our winter break I spent some time going through my belongings in my old closet. I have a few plastic bins containing all my photos, starting from elementary school when I took photos with throwaway cameras. Looking through my old photos made me think about the definite stopping point when I no longer was taking film photography. I remember when I got my first digital camera and really enjoying the immediate satisfaction of looking at the screen to see the photo. In recent years the aesthetic of film photography has had new life in digital form. Now photo editing apps give the user options to add filters such as “light leaks” and “emulsion”, which are straight from film development days in a dark room. A photo taken with your phone can be given a frame to make the photo look as if it came from a Polaroid camera. All of these effects are meant to give the digital photo a printed photo quality and in a sense make a connection between the digital and physical worlds. With all the technology we have available to us now, there is a definite nostalgia for the pre-digital era when things were more tangible and lived in our physical space.
I have been thinking a lot about this subject lately. Most recently the topic came up during our recent design sprint with the company Jarden and their product-Bernardin mason jars. Our task was to modernize a 100-year-old brand and connect with their younger, millennial aged consumer while still maintaining a good relationship with their older, long-term customers. How do we use digital technology to maintain something that has been around longer than digital technology has been itself?
Another aspect of the nostalgia for the pre-digital age is reminiscing about a time when people weren’t so desperately attached to technology. Today everyone has a cell phone and spends most of their day staring at various screens. Dinner conversations are interrupted by text messages and social media notifications. We no longer read newspapers, but rather read links to stories from various news websites. This was the topic of a recent creative tech project. In groups, we tried to figure out ways to use technology to bring people together and lessen the barriers we create with our various devices. This is something else I have been thinking a lot about with talk of our start up ideas for later in the year. How do we make technology less intrusive in our day-to-day interactions? How do we use technology in a way that makes our days easier and gives way for more time spent outdoors or with friends and family?
Technology is so ingrained in everything we do, but in the end can sometimes be more harmful than helpful. How do we use technology to bring back an older time and bridge the gap between our digital and physical lives?
