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Technologies of History

Interactive exploration of media recreations of the Kennedy assassination.

Year 2008
Format
Website
Credits by Steve Anderson
Design and Programming by Erik Loyer

Technologies of History explores the dense layers of mediation to which the assassination of John F. Kennedy has been subjected over the years, providing a rich set of opportunities to think about the construction of history itself. Motion-tracked paths from disparate video clips are superimposed to form a palimpsest, through which the user may follow connections suggested by either the video segment or its accompanying text.

Video Traversal

A high quality recording of the project as a user might experience it.


The “Analyzer” overlays motion paths from multiple video clips in a single visual field.
Clicking a topic expands the view, bringing commentary and links to other topics and related clips into dialogue with the tracked area of the video.
A single clip may contain multiple commentaries, and the excerpted works include documentaries, TV series, fiction films, machinima, and the first televised airing of the Zapruder film.
A clip viewer allows users to watch the excerpts in a more traditional format.