A visual narrative that connects disparate letters, people and periods to tell a story of the everyday.

My grandmother, Sandra Olivia Moon Hightower, passed down a bag of letters that she had held onto, written by my great grandmother, Dorothy “Dot” Moon, to my Great Grandfather, Edward “Jimmy” Moon during his WWII deployment at Pearl Harbor. The bag also included other miscellaneous letters my grandmother had received from friends and family during the 1950s and 60s. These letters requires one to mind the gaps —  to speculate the context in which these notes were written and the people, places and things that connected them.

Eleven letters are audio narrated by my great grandmother’s kin:

Sandra Hightower
Stacey Pulley
Taylor Hightower Jr.
Taylor Hightower III
Brett Pulley
Lillian Hightower
Blake Pulley
Fairin Moon Hightower

That is woven together by means of a website, physical book and publication. A sort of extension of  a-story-in.parts, this project utilizes Arduino and touch-activated sensors within a spiral-bound book, and reveals a personal archive of family images with audio narration, video and transcription. The book features a full transcription of all eleven letters, with all instances in which text was reinterpreted by myself, being placed within brackets. There is only one copy of the d book that houses the physical computing elements, with printed reproduction of the pages sans-Arduino being available when the work is shown.

Thank You To
Sandra Olivia Moon Hightower
Taylor Hightower Jr.
Taylor Hightower III
Stacey Pulley
Brett Pulley
Lillian Hightower
Blake Pulley
Fairin Moon Hightower

Technical Guidance by by Ed Brown 
Music by Cassius Pickens Video
Documentation by Dougal Henken
Performance Documentation by Berett Alexa Wilber