Media archaeology – working on the traces of a medium.

Theatre/archaeology – the (re)articulation of traces of the past as real-time event.

10×10 / 100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time / by Jonathan J. Harris

10×10 (’ten by ten’) is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10×10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10×10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life.

10×10 is ever-changing, ever-growing, quietly observing the ways in which we live. It records our wars and crises, our triumphs and tragedies, our mistakes and milestones. When we make history, or at least the headlines, 10×10 takes note and remembers.

Each hour is presented as a picture postcard window, composed of 100 different frames, each of which holds the image of a single moment in time. Clicking on a single frame allows us to peer a bit deeper into the story that lies behind the image. In this way, we can dart in and out of the news, understanding both the individual stories and the ways in which they relate to each other.

I am not sure the blurb is that appropriate – too epic, too much hype.

10×10 is actually fascinating because of its mundanity – not because it is some kind of grand historical record. And, for me, this is also precisely its power – history is found in these media details that we turn into something else – stories of triumph, tragedy, milestones, mistakes …

The way the text works with the image is interesting too – how a caption, of course, changes what we are looking at.