Universe

Universe - Revealing Our Modern Mythology, another project from Jonathan Harris whose work I have previously posted. After looking at his We Feel Fine and Ten By Ten projects, I came across his latest interactive experiment.


The above video is of Jonathan Harris talking about his work in March 2007 at a conference; the clip covers his inspiration, motivations and interests for his work and his explains his projects We Feel Fine, Time Capsule and premieres his new project Universe. A really interesting insight into the artist's work, his reasoning behind the project and a good demonstration of how all three projects 'work'.


Universe, was inspired both the consellations of the night sky; Harris looked at how humans in the past have used the sky as a way of telling stories and questioned, if we could make new consellations today, what would they be like. The project uses the metaphor of an interactive night sky, where each star represents a specific event in the real world, a quote, an image, a news story etc.


By watching the video posted above, the last ten minutes explain the project far better than I ever will. It is well worth giving some time to this project, watching the video and then exploring the Universe site as there is far more thinking and depth behind it than it first appears. This has really opened my eyes to the extent to which a relationship between the web and our lives can be developed. Harris seems to have a real fascination with exploring how we can record and explore the events of our everyday lives. For me, his projects also offer new ways of creating memories of the past - ways that in the 'digital era' can replace diaries and photo albums but that can still remain with us, just not in a material sense.