Time Stood Still
Rasheka Krishan
When my family moved to America we lost all our old photographs. Since I was born in the United States, I’m very disconnected from my past. I felt like I was walking through life trying to fill in the gaps. We all have our individual stories, but collectively we might start to form a different one. How can we archive our memories and give form to collective storytelling?
For the first exploration I created a website that archived memories. The design was purposefully very rigid and discontinuous, representing the way I learned my family history while growing up. To offset that rigidity, I developed a free-flowing organization and chose my current graduation class as my subject matter.
The website Time Stood Still links memories with emotions. The background colors represent emotions and the blending of the colors points to how memories and emotions are malleable and transformative. There is an AI function that determines what emotions are linked to memories, assigns colors, and adjusts the gradient of the website. The interface itself is one large page with four different levels that can be accessed by zooming. Each level delves deeper into each memory’s detail. As you hover over the gradient surface the content fades in and out of focus to mimic the science behind memories — representing how they’re recalled, stored, and transformed in storage and experience.