Recently, a friend sent me a link to The Amish Project, in which a junior copywriter for Leo Burnett in Chicago went offline for 90 days in order to finish his portfolio. By the time he came back online, he had learnt to communicate more effectively, be more productive with his time and he even won his girlfriend back.

Similarly, Jennifer Rauch went offline for roughly six months in 2010. She decided that she would ‘live’ in the year 1990 – meaning her life was now full of videotapes, zines, letters, newspapers, paper bills, landline telephones and so on. She recently had an interesting article published in Transformations journal, which discussed the origins of Slow Media.

When I hear about projects that are similar to mine, I initially experience a pang of terror. “Oh, christ! Someone beat me to it!” But when I think more about it, I think it’s great that other people feel the need to embark on such an endeavour. It means that what I’ve done – and the film that I’m making – might actually prove to be interesting to other people!

Looking at what Jake learnt from The Amish Project, I did notice a couple of differences in my own offline experience. First off, I think I was and am much more addicted to online media. When I started the project, I was terrified and when I finished it, I was incredibly relieved and couldn’t wait to get back online. Sure, my behaviour has changed since I’ve been back, but I immediately decided never to do anything like this again!

One of the reasons why I think I found it so hard was that my work – researching online media – kind of needs to be done with an internet connection… Funny that.

What about you? Do you think you’d ever give up modern technology for a while? What do you think would be the hardest part/thing you’d miss most?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (incidentally, that’s what we’ll all be doing if SOPA passes), you’ve heard about SOPA and Wikipedia’s ‘blackout’ protest of it. That’s right, instead of bombarding us with pictures of their staff, they’ve now learnt that the best way for the world to value what they do is to take it away for a little while.

Here’s a little bit about SOPA:

It’s been interesting for me to see how others are (or aren’t) coping without one popular website. Over at The Hairpin, they chronicled some of the things they ‘stupidly tried to Wikipedia today’ (they included Adam Ant and LL Cool J). It’s fascinating to see how reliant we’ve become on such technology.

I remember being amazed at Encarta ’98, which let you take a virtual tour of Arlington Cemetery and see JFK’s grave. Imagine! You could look at photos from the other side of the world! On a computer!!

A large part of my project is to chronicle how I coped offline for 80 days. But I’m also interested in finding out – how did you cope without Wikipedia for one day?

When I began using the old cameras, there was a lot of trial and error to getting it all to work. For instance, using the Folding Pocket Kodak from the 1890s, it took me a while to even work out the wind-on mechanism. But that’s how I ended up with such interesting shots as this one.

One of the main ideas I wanted to explore through this project was how the technology we use impacts the stories we tell. And if the mere act of using the thing results in something interesting, well, that’s kind of neat, isn’t it?

Whether or not you’re a Mac person, his work changed all of our lives. The first computer I ever used was the old beige Macintosh at my pre-school and I’m just about to trade in my ‘old’ iPhone 3GS for the new 4S. So, being a Mac Disciple, Jobs’ creations were the hardest things to give up during my experiment.

Undoubtedly, the company will go on to much bigger and better things, but the footprint their former CEO left has affected all of us.

Right. I’m going to stop this before I get any more preachy.

It was an interesting journey and I feel that I learned a lot, but it’s good to be back. I think I may have even learned more being back online than when I was offline – namely, having control over the devices you use makes life much more comfortable. The above image shows me enjoying some analogue music, whilst loading my Folding Pocket Kodak. It was a pretty good era – one of my favourites that I ‘visited’ – and it was a nice change from syncing iPods and waiting for camera batteries to recharge… But more on that later.

I’m now back in the future, getting ready to film some additional footage, editing a short teaser to present at the end of the semester and eagerly anticipating the release of the new iPhone (Did I not learn anything??)…

Well, one day left until this project begins… Here’s an updated list of the eras I’ll be ‘living’ in and the corresponding visual media.

1st July – 10th July: 2003 (DV video)

11th July – 20th July: 1976 (VHS)

21st July – 30th July: 1967 (Super 8 )

31st July – 9th August: 1946 (Box Brownie photography)

10th August – 19th August: 1899 (Folding Pocket Kodak)

20th August – 29th August: 1842 (Cyanotype – a new addition!)

30th August – 8th September: 1826 (pinhole photography)

9th September – 18th September: 1822 (the Daguerre diorama)

Many people have asked me about the extent to which I’ll be ‘living’ in each era… The rule of thumb I’m using is that I’ll be utilising the media and communication technology from each time. So, don’t pounce on me for using running water or getting circumcised (as suggested for all men, in ‘The Art of Living in Australia‘ published in 1893!)… You can still have a go at me if you catch me checking my Facebook, though!

Although I’ll be offline for a while, check back here from time to time during the next couple of months! I’ll be getting some very lovely friends to post photos and such occasionally on my behalf to keep you all updated on how I’m going!

Thank you for reading so far! Until my return, hope life treats you all well!

- Patches

Well, in three weeks time, I’ll be in 2003… I’m getting all my little gadgets together, including the Six20 Brownie D Kodak I’ve borrowed from my parents (Thanks Pete & Deb! My Six20 Brownie C was a bit dusty/rusty – good for spare parts though…) and the mini-DV is a Sony DCR-TRV16E I’ve borrowed from my friend Tim (Thanks Tim!).

So, the only ones I’ve got to go are the pinhole cameras I’ll build myself! I can’t believe I’m almost ready! In the meantime, I’m making the most of living in 2011 – I’ve written an article for ABC’s The Drum and I’m currently getting some work prepared for RMIT’s newly acquired VRoom.

By the way, if you’re in Melbourne at any time between July 1 and September 18, I’d love to have visitors to keep me up to date on what’s happening in the digital age and even help out with filming! Get in contact with me (I’ve got some very nice friends who’ll keep tabs on my email/facebook/blog)!

So, did you all hear that bin Laden had no internet or phone connection when they found him? Hopefully my tech-hiatus works out a bit better than his…