A Friday in October: I just took my first random Kodak-moment from the most uninteresting part of my bedroom floor. I realised too late that my new iPhone app automatically made a picture after the countdown. “ROOM for Thought”, created by Studio ROOM in the Netherlands, is a mobile app which alerts you every day at a random moment to take a picture. It first shows you a pointless few-second animation, and then you get three seconds to point the camera and wait for the picture to be taken.
I am usually too slow, resulting in blurred photographs of mundane nonsense. But the random pictures still provide a nice overall overview of the last few months: In the example-screenshot taken from the app you can see 4 days during my visit to Sydney last November. Although it seemed random at the time, it is actually all I need to remember the whole visit.
I never ignore the alert, which makes it a powerful conversation starter: I will take the photo, while explaining how enslaved I am by both this app and my PhD research. Next thing you know everyone in the room is sliding through the still images of my everyday life and asking questions about it. For me the power of this application lies in talking about it, because without my story none of it makes sense.
January 16 2014, 14:56 while riding my bicycle – quickly point at something! 3…2…1… Snap! Photo Nr. 94 has been added to my collection of 34.175.
Will I remember today?
