It is the year 2019 CE. We are sitting in a classroom, on a campus strategically situated just outside of New York City. Far away from us, on the island of Spitsbergen, near Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago belonging to Norway, is a secure vault that houses every seed on Earth. As a kind of agricultural biodiversity backup, The Svalbard Global Seed Vault just sits there waiting for a catastrophe to happen. As much as it is a safety net for the regrowth of life on Earth, it is also a time capsule, effectively giving the survivors or aliens who come upon a ruined Earth a glimpse into what it was like here until the point of catastrophe.
For this project, we will be collaboratively constructing our own time capsule.
Instead of seeds, or maybe exactly like seeds, our time-capsule will be collecting “surfaces” from Earth in 2019 C.E.. How exactly you interpret “surface” and “seeds” will ultimately be up to you… Surfaces are not seeds in literal terms–in appearance or physicality–but they can be very similar in the way that both of these things store the data necessary for something to continue to exist, or for something to be communicated… A surface, seed, and memory can be all viewed as related in this way.
These terms, surfaces and seeds, in this context could be interpreted in a multitude of ways. It could be a fragment of a life. Or a life experience. It could be a manifesto. It could be documentation… But of what from 2019? It could be a cry for help. But from whom in 2019? An archive of venmo transactions… Or tweets… Or headlines… The possibilities for how this prompt is interpreted are vast. And what seed or surface is archived in this time capsule could be anywhere in the range of public or private. It could archive or store the seed information for a memory, a community, an individual, or even a physical or conceptual place.
Do consider how the reading discusses understanding the present, to speculate the future. Do consider the references given for this project, but specifically in response to their time of creation and the limits (or non-limits) of technology at that time of their creation. For example, Warhol’s Time Capsules were collected surfaces and memories. Toenail clippings, unsigned prints, unopened mail, bubblegum, letters to friends, receipts, cans of uneaten food. They are sealed and ‘preserved’ in cardboard boxes with tape, and catalogued by a team 30 years later.
We have multiple surfaces to contend with. The digital surface of a website; the physical surface of a screen; the shallowest understanding or display of a concept; the surface of an emotion. As we age, so do our devices, our designs, our technology, our concepts, and our surfaces.
For this project you will work collaboratively in small teams to identify and choose a topic stemming from the brief above that the group wants to store in our collective time capsule. This topic should be something you think is important to you today, in 2019, and that you would want someone (or something) 10 years from now to experience. It will also help to consider your potential audience, which can be you and your group, the university, society as a whole, or some other audience.
As a team, you will create a screen-mediated ‘surface’ which will facilitate the user’s ‘experience of’ or ‘access to’ the topic from 2019 your team designed to store within. This screen-mediated website does not have to be a description of what your choice is. Rather, it is more important that whoever stumbles upon our time capsule to understand, feel, and/or experience your topic.
The one stipulation for this project is that it must be accessible via the web for the next ten years in addition to being viewable today as a well designed/considered thing. Please be aware there will be multiple mile-marker requirements to assist the completion of this collaborative project which will be announced at an appropriate time.
Submission requirements will additionally be announced at an appropriate time.
You can consider these surfaces as interfaces if you like.
Regardless, their function will be the same: transmission of the memory/content (see above).
Is your surface passive? Or active? Is the user active? Or passive?*
Is it hardware or software?
Like a physical time capsule, will your content remain obscured for the time period, contained and only accessible once ten years has elapsed?
Unlike physical time capsules, yours can take advantage of its nature as software. Consider whether your time capsule-website should access the web to periodically archive data, create or save images, for example.
What or who is the user or participant?
What is the best way design for longevity? If technology and coding languages are constantly shifting, how does your team ensure your project is accessible in 10 years?
What is the best way to store your groups chosen thematic? Is memory like data? How are you communicating this surface from 2019. Is it a sound? A smell? An idea?
What do you really want someone to understand about your topic? A seed isn’t the thing itself. A memory is never complete…
What is the best way for the user to understand this goal for the experience of your project? What are the mechanisms for this transmission?