For the Memex Jam, I was looking at a binder I have which is a kind of notebook for the room project. It contains emails, notes, code, photos, and so on, chronologically through time.
I imagined being able to use the binder as an index into dynamic objects and dynamic ideas from the past.
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Active Photos
On my work table, I've placed the binder and a few blank pages.
I open to a page with a photo:
I project the photo onto one of the pieces of paper. It's an Active Photo that captured the state of the system when it was taken. The projection displays an "alternate reality" which starts from the captured state and simulates forward in time from there. I can watch the dynamic objects do their thing:
and even interact with them through the page:
The alternate reality is "attached" to the piece of paper. I can move the paper around, put it on a wall, give it to someone, etc. When I'm done with it, perhaps I "wipe" the paper, or maybe I just throw it away.
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Old code, old ideas
Throughout the binder are snippets of code that represent various ideas and alternatives that we've had. We'd like to have all of these ideas "at hand", and be able to easily try out these bits of code as we come across them.
I select some code:
and attach its output to another piece of paper. (Perhaps it runs in the context of the system at the point in time when the code was printed, or perhaps it runs in the current context.)
I can do this as much as I want to build up a stack of paper, each running different bits of code from the notebook. (Each page shows the "live" results from the running code.) I can spread the pages out, compare them, put the ones I like on a whiteboard or into their own binder, give them to people, etc.
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Reference material
Later in the binder, I come across a reference to an article. I bring up the article on a piece of paper.
It's a projection right now, but if the article seems interesting, I have it printed out, and can replace the projected article with the hardcopy:
I already know where to put down the hardcopy on the desk -- I put it where the virtual article already is, because that's where the article is in my head. It feels like the virtual article "solidified" into a printed article.
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Adding to the binder
By the time my work session has ended, I've assembled various things of interest on the desk, which represent what I've been thinking about. I capture a photo of the desk:
And put the photo itself into the binder, to reference later.
Like all Active Photos, the photo captures the state of the system, including the dynamic objects on the desk. Later, once the physical desk has been cleared, I can still refer to the objects that were on it by interacting with them through the photo:
The binder itself perhaps lives on a shelf of the library. Someday, someone else might look through the binder, try out the ideas in it, take a photo of their workspace, and add their photo to the binder.
In this way, the binder accumulates the ideas, connections, and riffing of many people through time -- not just static writings and photos, but entire dynamic workspaces, with "deep" links to the dynamic objects that people assembled over the course of their work session.