I found the information presented in ‘Unremembering the forgotten’ Very interesting the fact with just a few lines of code the gender ratio of the scientists involved could be found shows just how easy it can be to find interesting things. The nature of the talk and how it addresses the unpopular side of Australian history, stories that are outside discourse and what digital heritage can possibly do for this kind of history, I found particular interesting the fact that access can never simply be given and that it must be taken to a certain extent. There is much to find on the surface but there is much more beneath, a sort of web based archaeology I guess, it really is exciting. It really can lead to all sorts of things bubbling forth, challenging, intriguing and creepy things, I agree that it really has a potential to make a difference.
For example 80-90percent of the population of the Americas died from smallpox or other factors of european settlement. This figure is absolutely horrific but it does not connect with people. As you have stated faces really do something to people they prompt such a large amount of emotion, therefore it would be interesting and confronting to bring a face to the estimated 2-100 million native americans that died. Perhaps faces that are in turn made of faces and those faces are composed of faces etc, like those montages that create a face out of other images except it just goes deeper and deeper. There are many possibilites perhaps using maps, graphs or other forms of data visualisation.
It really does make you think of the power that digital tools have to make a difference to the way we see each other, the past and ourselves.
