365 Seconds

What is the 365 Seconds project? Really, the premise is simple: To capture the smallest slice of life every single day.

How does it work?

At some point (or multiple) throughout the day, I take a short video of what is happening around me. Generally, this video will be from a first-person perspective - I want to remember this day as I saw it, rather than seeing myself as some sort of third-person character living my own life.

At the end of the day, I look through my videos and choose the one I think best represents that particular day. “Best” is surely a subjective metric. The best clip one day may simply be making breakfast. Perhaps I only thought to take one clip at all that day, or sometimes none at all. Other days are action packed and there are several captivating videos that fight for attention.

In the end, however, exactly one second per day can make it into the final cut.

To illustrate my commitment to the “one second” rule, I have taken to trimming the videos down to the last frame. The video is mastered at 30 fps, meaning I have just 30 frames to demonstrate my day.

Artistic Intent

More broadly, the project leaves a lot of room for creativity. While some days are truly impactful events in my life, many more days are simply mundane happenings that remind me of what life was like in 2020.

Why?

In the end, 365 Seconds is a tool for self reflection. It leads me to look back at the brightest and darkest days of the year, as well as every lost day in between. The notion of reviewing an entire year in just slightly more than six minutes is intriguing. What will I remmember? What will I forget? How will those memories hold up as time passes on?

Cesar Kuriyama’s One second every day

The 365 Seconds project is inspired by Cesar Kuriyama’s 2012 TED Talk titled One second every day. It’s worth checking out his video for more context about this project.