About

All Our Yesterdays is the thesis of Michelle Chandra as part of her graduate studies at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP).

All Our Yesterdays was a one-woman operation but would not have been possible without the help of many. The responsive front-end template was built out by PSD2HTML. Surya Mattu and Sam Slover provided programming assistance in many office hours over the course of the semester.

Special thanks to CartoDB especially Andrew Hill, Aurelia Moser and Andy Eschbacher, Gabe BC and my thesis group, the staff and faculty at ITP, Gilad Lotan, all my ITP peers especially Clio Davis, Diana Freed, Sheri Manson, Rucha Patwardhan, Justin Restauri, and Batu Sayici, and my parents.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
-Macbeth, Act V, Scene 5

Technical Implementation

Front-End: HTML5 and CSS3 template. Animations created using JavaScript and jQuery.

Back-End: Node.js Heroku web app for data collection to access Instagram API, node modules included tzwhere for timezone information, and suncalc for sunset and sunrise times.

Except for the front end HTML/CSS template, everything was produced by Michelle Chandra including visual design, data mining, user experience design, content creation, conceptual design, site architecture, map visualizations, programming and research.

Research

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Picador, 1977, 2001. Print.

Memory
Zerubavel, Eviatar. Social Mindscapes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. Print.
Erll, Astrid. Memory in Culture. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011. Print.

Synchronicity
Evans, James. The History & Practice of Ancient Astronomy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Print.
Falk, Dan. In Search of Time. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2008. Print.
Hammond, Claudia. Time Warped. Toronto: Anansi International, 2012. Print.
Klein, Stefan. The Secret Pulse of Time. Cambridge: Marlowe & Company, 2006. Print.
Umbrico, Penelope. "A Documentary Practice of Sorts..." Afterimage 41.01. (2013): 26. Print.
Yanofsky, David. "The Pilots of Instagram." Quartz 12 Dec. 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2015.

Legacy
NPR. "Overexposed? Camera Phones Could Be Washing Out Our Memories." NPR's All Things Considered 22 Dec. 2014. Web. 1 May. 2015.
Morris, Errol. Believing is Seeing. New York: Penguin Press, 2011. Print.

Contact

Michelle Chandra can be reached by email at michelle.chandra (at) gmail.com.

Follow me on Twitter @analogmichelle

Data Transparency

The visualizations and content presented in All Our Yesterdays is the work of Michelle Chandra for educational, research and noncommercial purposes. Per Instagram's Terms of Service, Instagram users own their content. Only publicly shared data is collected and shared in the map visualizations for 24 hours from upload before being deleted.

If you wish for your data to be removed from this site or the visualizations, please contact Michelle Chandra (michelle.chandra (at) gmail.com) for prompt removal.

Press

May 2015:

Engadget, Mapping project catalogs Instagram sunrises from around the world
Gizmodo, Travel the World Through Sunsets and Sunrises on this Map
PetaPixel, A Visualization of Sunrise and Sunset Photos Being Snapped Around the World
The Creator's Project, Instagram Viz Project Lets You Catch the Sunrise All Over the World
Design Taxi, You Can Now Watch The Sun Rise And Set Around The World Via Instagram