Saturday, November 5, 2011

A seven-year-old's Saturday

A chapter in Pieces of Light is going to deal with the use of SenseCam as a memory aid for people with amnesia. SenseCam is a little camera worn around the neck which takes pictures of the world as you move through it. Various sensors embedded in the device detect movement and changes in light and temperature, and trigger the taking of a picture through its wide-angle lens. I borrowed one for a week from the memory researcher Chris Moulin at the University of Leeds, and used it to perform my own memory experiment, described in the book.

I also thought it would be fun to let my seven-year-old try it out. He took it with him on a shopping trip one Saturday afternoon, and I assembled the resulting images into a timelapse movie. I think it gives a lovely insight into what the world might look like to a seven-year-old.