New Yorker: "Remember This?" -- Gordon Bell

Wilkinson's article touches a bit on Gordon Bell's life and a lot on the project, MyLifeBits, that he has been working on -- one that is, technically, never-ending. Bell's objective is to record everything, scan all documents and photographs that were ever part of his life and record the present with SenseCam. It's to record everything and to try to make it accessible. Though, the accessibility part seems to be an issue. A lot of things happened in his life.

On one hand, it seems practical to be able to have everything digitalized and stored. Never again will you have to spend hours finding a LLBean receipt of a purchase made 8 years ago, only to discover that it was thrown out on your last move. On the other hand, too much is too much. It's obsessive. Bell seems to be living in his past. The fact that he believes that one day houses will be window-less and instead of a view of your garden, you will be presented with a view of the Orient Express -- it just seems to me that he doesn't want to live in the present. To focus on what happened in the past instead of appreciating what is happening now, just seems to be such a waste. 

Though I do have to agree with Bell, although the examples and MyLifeBits is a bit too much for me, humanity does seem to be heading into having every event of our life logged. Time stamped. Think: blogging, twitter.com, facebook, chatting via text on your iPhone -- knowing what you are doing or did at exactly what time. It's a small part of what he is doing. And it's part of the technological culture that we are in. It's almost as if we're walking up a ladder, slowly step by step, yet Bell is already on top. He's past time stamping everything in his life, he's accepted it. I, on the other hand, am doing it, without realising it. Without consciously thinking that there are bits of information on my computer, or on the internet, about the last time I played a song on my iTunes.

The part that struck me the most, however, was the part about memory. I've constantly thought about past memories that I have had and how many of those memories were due to the fact that I actually remembered them, or because I saw a photograph and it reminded me of a time. Although it hasn't really, the picture just showed that I was there and it was a proof that whatever I was doing at that time happened. Does that actually make it a memory? I remember looking at the picture. I guess it translated to it happening in my mind. Perhaps the picture made it into a memory. I guess that is how I remember now. 

Alec Wilkinson, "Remember This? A Project to Record Everything We Do in Life." The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/28/070528fa_fact_wilkinson?currentPage=all