capture

of data, of memory, of moment, of fleeting thought

as opposed to recording, capturing can be seen as an automated or passive process

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when I get a spark of inspiration I save it for later but it is held there suspended because I can’t make progress on my thinking about it until later. Orchestration of attention rather than contemplating and organising as is implied by recording

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Mentions

• “An increasing number of automated services dedicated to a storage, organization, and sharing of personal memory draw on the term in their advertising schemes. Evernote: “capture what’s on your mind”; life-logging wearable camera and app Narrative Clip: “capture authentic photos and videos effortlessly.” Some incorporate the term into the very name of the service, such as Capture-app, a photo storage service automating personal photography and video collections, or Kapture, an audio recording wristband enabling the effortless capture of audio snippets from everyday life. As we can clearly see, the term is often followed by an indication of its effortless, automated character, simple use, and general user-friendliness which all make the term mean something much different from recording.” (Smolicki, 2017)
• “precisely “to take” or “to seize” ” … “imposition of some force” (Smolicki, 2017)
• “to capture one’s imagination – typically, to inspire and stimulate someone’s ability to imagine – also evokes a contradiction in this thesis. Understood in this light, one’s imagination is no longer subject to inspiration alone, but also to detention. Capturing not only inspires, but also detains attention and imagination, orchestrates it, and delimits the possibility to imagine differently.” (Smolicki, 2017)