Filming ourselves and sharing the footage isn’t a modern phenomenon inspired by smart phones. It goes back to the first film in 1888 with Louis Le Prince’s Roundhay Garden Scene, a silent short of his family at home that demonstrates how we’ve always seen ourselves, friends and family as interesting subjects.
As advancements in technology led to more portable and affordable cameras, amateur filmmakers continued documenting their lives; capturing the everyday and extraordinary moments that moved and made us long before we were sharing selfies. These recorded memories have become an archive of our private lives and public history that preserves forgotten times, places and experiences.
Related articles
Related works
Content notification
Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.
Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.
Collection
In ACMI's collection
On display until
16 February 2031
ACMI: Gallery 1
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
Curatorial section
The Story of the Moving Image → Moving Minds → MM-11. Memory Garden