This week I went back to using Relive app and so today I would like to share with you what I really like about it. As most of us move more outdoors to enjoy the safety of nature, we also seem to be getting back to longer walks, runs, bike rides. So why not capture all those memories while we can? All you need is a free (or paid – for more options) version of Relive app on your smartphone. When you start your route, open the app, start tracking your movements and simply stop now and again to take a photo. When you finish the route you can edit the experience mixing together your route, its stats and your photos. I personally think it is a fantastic way of creating small keepsakes from our outdoor adventures.
It can also be a great tool to tell digital stories. My son’s school took on the Black Lives Matter as a topic this semester, so for his Sports Day on Tuesday, I took him for a bike ride around Bristol mapping out just a few places related to this important movement. Here is the Relive video from our trip.
(You can see the full story as a webpage here.)
As it happens, exactly the next day, we all woke up to the news of a new, temporary statue in the city centre replacing the empty space left after the Colston’s one (“A Surge of Power (Jen Reid) 2020” by Mark Quinn). Art events like this one are well known in the area. In it also quite expected to see those temporary statues removed, so the same evening I went with my husband for a walk to capture the new work too. Here it is.
(You can see the full story as a webpage here.)
As the city landscape changes due to the courageous work of activists, artists and many other citizens, it’s really important to document those changes. There are a lot of voices in this discussion, all of them are valid. Black Lives Matter – like other contemporary collective movements – give us an opportunity to open up to better listening and to change.
I used the app to record the route and take photos. I came home and posted the videos to my social media channels and now updated them on our YouTube channels and blogged about it all. This is an example of a transmedia story – story published in multiple platforms. This form of storytelling – if planned in a smart way – is actually very easy to do.
We now have an opportunity to speak up, to express ourselves and to share those hyperlocal, transmedia stories. I am so pleased to live in the digital age when most of us have free, accessible tools to document those stories individually – without the need for complex digital skills or expensive publishing platforms.
