THE 100-YEAR SCRAPBOOK
What happens when memory becomes digital?
The scrapbook is where evidence meets
human experience.
When I was a kid, a scrapbook was a place for things I liked enough to keep. A flower photograph. A newspaper clipping. Something that meant something to me. The technology changed. The human impulse did not.
A mark survives. A photograph survives.
Human beings have always tried to make memory outlive the person who made it.”
The old scrapbook held photographs,
ticket stubs, flowers, handwriting,
newspaper pieces and personal memory.
The new one can hold those things too.
But now it can also hold something new:
AI-MADE COMPOSITES.
THE NEW WALL PAINTING
A historical photograph says this was there.
A composite can say:
“This is how these facts, places and memories
connect.”
Interpretive composite — created to help visualize the meaning of a story, not presented as a historical photograph.
THE PHOTOGRAPH RECORDS.
THE COMPOSITE INTERPRETS.
THE SCRAPBOOK HOLDS BOTH.
