1.2 A Triptych of Time

A Triptych of Time: How our lives are intertwined with the clock

By Susanne Spek and Anne Nelissen

Concept

If you ask someone what time it is, I bet they can tell you this with an accuracy of less than thirty minutes. The clock, which can be found everywhere, rules over our lives. Every house, every bus stop, every church, every store has a clock. The clock has such a big impact on our lives that we actually live on the basis of this technology. We plan our day and make appointments using this technology. Companies and business processes are also highly dependent on time. Imagine what a working day would look like if there was no time? That's hard right?

The first sundials date from roughly 1500 BC. Were those ancient Egyptians the first to start basing their rhythm more on this technology than on their biological needs? If you look at today's society, it is striking that everything is automated, improved and strengthened with the help of technology. Technology enhances productivity and effectiveness. In doing so, technology makes it possible to ignore and exceed natural rhythms. Is this also the case with the invention of the clock? With the clock we can plan our day using a technological clock instead of using our biological clock. Is this a good development that makes us a stronger and more powerful species, or is there a danger in this that will ultimately cause us to perish?

We were fascinated by the intertwinedness of the clock with our lives. It is even more astonishing since most people would not think about the clock as a typical example of a medium. The clock mediates the abstract concept of time and turns it into something we can work with, plan on and live by.

Our project In our project we have explored the world of the clock in three ways: A Triptych of Time.

Sundi(git)al is a combination of a clock based on biological rhythms, the sundial, and a contemporary clock based on digital precision. Sundi(git)al captures the history and ideas behind this medium, the clock. It shows where the technology of the clock began and where it is today. The clock uses the two different rhythms, the biological clock that is very dependent on sunlight, and the technological clock that transmits the exact time every second of the day.

People are never more than 30 minutes off when guessing the time. This little creative research shows how intertwined our lives are with the clock. In this part of our project we tried to explore the relation between the clock and people. By asking a bunch of different persons in several different settings what time they think it is without looking on a clock, we can come to the conclusion that people are extremely accurate at knowing the time. On average, the participants were only 11 minutes away from the actual time.

We were often more than 30 minutes off when guessing the time. To get closer to an understanding of the relation between clocks and our lives, we decided to live one day completely without looking at the time. We were, as opposed to the participants mentioned above, on average 43 minutes away from the actual time. Besides that, we experienced how intertwined our normal lives are with knowing the exact time. Not only was making appointments for that day strikingly difficult, we also experienced that it had influence on our overall behaviour. Without knowing the time, it was way more difficult deciding what to do and when. Additionally, it was extremely hard to avoid all clocks. The time is everywhere: every Whatsapp-message is noted with the time, all your emails are signed with the time, bus stops, receipts, phones, etc.

Implementation

Sundi(git)al: The arduino is programmed so that it rotates 180 degrees in the time of sunrise to the time of sunset. An arm is mounted to the servo motor to which LED lights are attached. This is a representation of the sun that rotates around the earth in 180 degrees during the day. The time can be read by the shadow on the stick placed in the middle. When the sun is down, the time can no longer be read.

*We are aware that the sun does not always revolve around the earth in the same movement. However, with this project we want to create awareness for the technology of the clock, and the project is not based on technological complexity.

People are never more than 30 minutes off when guessing the time: We asked 22 people the following question: “Without looking at your phone or any other clock, what time do you think it is?”. The participants were asked this question in all kinds of settings: in the break of a concert, while studying, at a bar, in a café and so on.

We were often more than 30 minutes off when guessing the time. For one day we taped our phones, clocks and laptops and did not look at any clock for 24 hours. We marked a few moments where we guessed the time and related this (by tracking the information of the photos and videos taken at that moment) to the actual time. We experienced that it is very hard to live a day without time and without a clock we are not good at knowing what time it is.