Silver Age e tecnologia. Riflessioni preliminari sull’interazione tra invecchiamento e avanzamento tecnologico in uno studio di campo

Aging might be considered one of the great cultural innovations of our times. In a time–lap of 50 years, humanity has gained 36 years of life expectancy worldwide. What big data collected from world countries is pointing out, is that our species is today dying less, therefore aging more. However, while aging is mostly tackled as a “challenge”, a “problem”, a “health emergency” and a “political issue” in public discourse, the novelty of what it represents from a cultural, philosophical, emotional, aesthetic and social point of view is mostly ignored. Our interdisciplinary contribution aims at highlighting, on the one side, the features of Silver Age, analysed through ethnography and sociology and, on the other side, explain how a design research, within the EUFACETS project, was carried out as a first attempt aiming at reconstructing memories through the digitalization of “what used to be analogic”. Hence, by means of a relational use of technology for heritage building, the study traces time–space mediations and envisions app–based prototypes for a reflective and slow way of memories sharing. The embodied immersion of the project in institutional spaces of residences for elderly people, suggests the need for re–defining Silver Age and the relationship between different generations, triggered by technological advancement, and the new possibilities of sharing images as glimpses of life stories. times. In a time–lap of 50 years, humanity has gained 36 years of life expec- tancy worldwide. What big data collected from world countries is pointing out, is that our species is today dying less, therefore aging more. However, while aging is mostly tackled as a “challenge”, a “problem”, a “health emer- gency” and a “political issue” in public discourse, the novelty of what it rep- resents from a cultural, philosophical, emotional, aesthetic and social point of view is mostly ignored. Our interdisciplinary contribution aims at highlight- ing, on the one side, the features of Silver Age, analysed through ethnography and sociology and, on the other side, explain how a design research, within the EUFACETS project, was carried out as a first attempt aiming at recon- structing memories through the digitalization of “what used to be analogic”. Hence, by means of a relational use of technology for heritage building, the study traces time–space mediations and envisions app–based prototypes for a reflective and slow way of memories sharing. The embodied immersion of the project in institutional spaces of residences for elderly people, suggests the need for re–defining Silver Age and the relationship between different gener- ations, triggered by technological advancement, and the new possibilities of sharing images as glimpses of life stories.