When is a file born?

I use timestamps and location metadata to cast charts for photographs, files and journal entries. Revisiting old images this way adds another dimension to remembering: I can place a moment alongside my natal chart and transits, and make what I think of as a celestial artifact of that moment.

I’ve used this to revisit digital photographs going back decades, as well as images friends have sent me and my own journal entries.

A file can carry several beginnings: capture, creation, modification, export. In July I added an Astrotechne experiment that turns a reviewed time and place from image metadata into an event chart. Choosing the record is part of the interpretation. An exact timestamp does not settle which event matters.

In September I returned to that choice, improving place and timezone resolution and making the result readable in the same chart interface as the rest of Astrotechne. The chart can continue into the live workspace without first becoming a saved record.

For a poster, I might ask whether making, exporting or circulating it is the relevant beginning. The tool calculates from that decision; it does not make the decision for me.

September 2026 local interface demonstration with a synthetic Denver event and replayed calculation data. It does not document planning a historical gathering.