The Slowtale.net project concluded in May 2005, after a three year run. While the project will no longer be updated, it will remain online. The final Calendar entry can be viewed here. Slowtale.net was created in 2002 by Vera Brunner-Sung, an artist and writer living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Its two main elements, Calendar and Lifespan, are image-based projects she developed to trace her movements and experiences in life. Organized by date, the pages and their contents might be interpreted as a personal record on par with a "blog." But unlike most weblogs--personal platforms characterized by regular entries of text and/or photographs--the site's purpose is neither to venerate the banal, nor to provide a venue for the rantings or ramblings of its author. Content on Slowtale is arranged, rather than determined, by date. Written text is sparse and serves only to provide essential context. Beyond this, viewers are left to interpret (and reflect on or simply browse through) the images at their own will. Throughout, hyperlinks lead outside the personal domain. Calendar While indeed documents of the world around us, photographs are also inescapably subjective renderings of a given moment in time. Rather than establishing a definitive sequence of events, this project offers a succession of diary-like entries, each consisting of a brief introductory text followed by a series of photographs. Each group of images forms its own narrative, and visitors to the pages are spectators, glimpsing the world through the eyes of the photographer. Slowtale embraces this personal and intimate aspect of the image. Lifespan This project provides a literal timeline of the artist's life. Assembling its contents involved extensive research over the span of two years: poring over hundreds of photographs, childhood diaries, journals, letters, and e-mails, as well as consulting friends and family. Selected historical events were added for their personal or political significance. The resulting document, however, is by no means definitive: the words and images employed here act as stimuli for memory. Since the majority of photographs in Lifespan were taken by others, there is no avoiding the possibility of false memories--e.g., do I really remember that happening, or just the photograph of it? But there are moments and events vivid in the artist's memory that are as yet uncorroborated by any kind of physical evidence, and there are many blank spaces on the timeline. There is an element of anxiety present in these projects--a fear of forgetting or of losing, a craving for ownership of experience. But it is the beauty of a moment, however fleeting, that is the fundamental inspiration for Slowtale. And as personal and specific as photographs are, they also serve as points of entry for people into each other's experiences, providing access and connection to lives lived and stories told. It is these relationships that sustain us. We all long for stability and security in our lives. We make schedules, arrange furniture, have routines, form relationships. We long for validation, and seek to affirm our own existence. This website serves as a testament of the foundation that the artist looks to for comfort in her life. It is an image bank for a personal history. Inevitably, the site continues to be a work in progress. Summer 2004