Thinking about my work so far this semester, a common theme has emerged and that is that we should avoid the binary of old and new media. As someone who has engaged with various forms of media over the past twenty two years I think I will be able to explore this. Especially when we consider that is is becoming increasingly more and more difficult to pinpoint what is old and new.

Moving into my project, I have noticed the large amount of technology/archive footage/belongings that I have in my house that belongs not only to me but to my family. I’m interested in exploring the documentation of domestic moments and/or the archives we keep in the home and what exactly these artefacts are, and how they have changed and evolved – or not really changed – over generations and also over one’s lifetime.

To give some examples of this, my Mum has books that are over a hundred years old in our home that belonged to her relatives. She also has a lot of books that were hers as a teenager and young adult. All of these have survived the test of time, moving through a number of different houses, mainly collecting dust but remaining important to her.

My Mum also has a lot of photos spanning over the last sixty years, her own photos and some that have been passed down to her. As for me, I also have physical artefacts that have been archived over the course of my life, from books to VHS to DVD’s to older technologies (iPods, old phones, old laptops). I also have a wealth of digital archive – on social media, on my hard drive, on YouTube/Vimeo and so on.

Dan suggested to me that I should hone in on this idea and focus on my household. With the sheer amount of stuff that I have within my house and on technologies I can use within my home I want to explore how domestic life and personal identity is recorded and archived and how the means of doing so have changed over time, especially as we consider how technology is shifting and changing. There is technology that I used ten years ago that is more or less defunct now (digital cameras which I took photos on). If we consider this in different contexts, this technology can be considered either old or new media.

Additionally within my household we have all of this archive which could be considered as either old or new depending on your own subjective view point. Ultimately many of the technologies which me and my family have engaged with have led to the same result – archived content.

While this has probably been a massive spiel, basically I’m interested in exploring the use of older/more recent technology have both led to recording and archiving one’s life, even over different generations. I am thinking that my final product will be a film which remixes media to comment on this. Hopefully my idea will formulate more as I record some footage… I hope this makes sense!