The Pararchive Project

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve had an idea in mind to explore archive material related to Manchester by walking through the streets themselves. After deliberating over a few methods of doing this, I’ve decided that the interface of a portable radio is a great way to do this: you walk around the…

We’re often asked why we called this project Pararchive. It totally wasn’t like this…

A few days ago, Tom pointed out that British Pathé had made its entire collection of newsreel pieces as YouTube content. Purely by chance the first clip I viewed was harrowing footage of a fighter pilot struggling (and failing) to exit his sinking jet after a overshooting an aircraft carrier landing… Ostensibly, the choice of Youtube as a platform carries the…

From the BBC’s Ian Forrester… As part of my investigations into Perceptive Media, myself and other colleagues are deconstructing storytelling down to its most logical parts. Part of this is understanding the history of storytelling and other aspects of storytelling which are outside the mainstream consciousness. Storytelling through different types of frames  

We may believe that recent history is safely tucked away in the digital fortress, but electronic content actually faces far greater threats than traditional materials like diaries, files, and letters. Whether as a result of bit rot, unstable storage devices, technical failures, or systemic obsolescence, Burn and other scholars fear that “potentially great letters or…

“…while facts are facts—and you don’t want to mess with them too much—crafting the story of your life is not an exercise in reporting. It is about creating a narrative, and the difference between a news report and a narrative is meaning. It is your job to invent the meaning of your life and then fit that meaning…

A photo taken every thirty seconds, tagged in space and time; twice a minute, for the rest of your life. This is Narrative Clip, a small “wearable” that promises to capture each moment of your life in an annotated, searchable and shareable timeline of your life. Essentially, a photographic memory and an automated biography. What…

Google’s Night Walk in Marseille in a beautifully rendered illustration of the possibilities of storytelling with data and the open web. Using a combination of Google’s Maps, Street View, Youtube and Search services, Night Walk takes the viewer on a narrated tour of the Marseille neighbourhood of Cours Julien, famous for its street art. Google’s own data…

One of the aims of Pararchive is to bring together community groups, members of the public and cultural institutions to collaboratively engage with our shared cultural and historical heritage in order to ensure its ongoing relevance. This partnership is enabling project members to interact with the diverse assets and collections of our project institutional partners…