Lesson 03 – Clock / Time
Allan Tannenbaum, PATTI SMITH (FUCK THE CLOCK), 1978
Singer-songwriter Patti Smith wore her declamatory T-shirt, ironically, at a performance on New Year’s Eve 1978 at the legendary music club CBGB in New York City. Smith’s shirt was a rejection of modern, time-harried life. Today’s attorneys are a prime examples of being “on the clock.” Charging for their services based on the Time they spend on a client’s affair, they are pressured to account ever-accruing Time as “billable hours.”
Schedule
| Time | Desc |
|---|---|
| 00:00 – 00:15 | Intro |
| 00:15 – 00:30 | Sharing |
| 00-30 - 01:00 | Work on assignement |
| 01:00 - 01:10 | Break |
| 01:15 - 02:00 | Work on assignement |
| 02:00 - 02:15 | Wrap up |
🎯 Focus
Represent time visually and conceptually in generative systems.
⏰ Content
Brief
Today we’ll work on building a device visualising the passing of time. Your design should be abstract enough and appear different at all times of the day. It should incorporate some kind of cycles as well. You should prevent from using letter and digits unless it’s highly relevant with your concept and used in a unique way.
While designing your clock ponder things like biological time (chronobiology), ultradian rhythms and infradian rhythms, solar and lunar cycles, celestial time, geological time, decimal time, historical time, psychological time, and subjective time. 1
You must first sketch your idea on paper before working with the software.
The concept of time
Time and movement in art are closely linked. Time, however, is an abstract concept, with cultural and historical implications. It does not have the physicality that movement does. Time-based artwork is more ephemeral.
Linear vs. circular, or cyclical time
In the concept of linear time there is a beginning (the past), and an end (the future). Between the two is the present, which is always moving forward.
American flow of time. Richard Lewis
Carving up American time. Richard Lewis
Digital clocks and time lines illustrate the idea of linear time very effecively.
Time line of art in the ancient world - Parthenon graphics
Charles M. Schulz 6/11/2011 Daily comic on peanuts.com
In contrast, circular, or cyclical time is a repeating process, like cycles and seasons, that creates continuous and infinite outcomes. Analog clocks and labryinths are good examples of circular time.
Circular time nesting.
References
The clock clock white by humans since 1982 + A million time
The clock clock white by humans since 1982 from Humans since 1982 on Vimeo.
‘clock’ by christiaan postma image © designboom
Christiaan postma explains that the starting point with his project ‘the clock’ was a personal study about form & time. the dutch designer puts together more than 150 individual clockworks and arranges them work together to become one clock. he shows the progress of time by letting the numbers be written in words by the clockhands. reading clockwise, the time being is visible through a word and readable by the completeness of the word, 12 words from ‘one’ to ‘twelve’. the size of the clock is 1,4 by 1,4 meter.
‘0.5g min’ evolving sculpture by albin karlsson, 2007 images © designboom
A machine in the ceiling drip 0,5 gram of wax based hot glue every minute, at the same time the machine is rotating just like a hand in an analog clock. On the floor a stalagmite shape rises during time. Project
9-1.mp4 from Albin Karlsson on Vimeo.
https://jhwilbert.com/portfolio/exquisite-clock/
Olafur Elliason - Beyond human time
Beyond human time, was produced using pieces of ancient glacial ice that were fished from the sea off the coast of Greenland during production of the large-scale installation Ice Watch, 2014.
Chrono Shredder - SUSANNA HERTRICH (2020)
‘time to eat’ by catalan designer martí guixé is a wall clock telling you it is time to eat by emitting the smell of cooking: 9am breakfast, 1pm cooking vegetable smell, 10pm preparing tomato sauce… – essence project lorenzo dante ferro
’Sasa Clock’
Thorunn Arnadottir’s ’Sasa Clock’ comprises painted-wood beads hung over a slowly turning carousel. A bead slips down the cord every five minutes
And much, much more here –> Golan Levin Lecture - Representing Time
Example
Wrap-Up & Homework
- Summarize key learnings.
- Add to your journal
📝 Activities
- Discussion: linear vs cyclical time.
- Code: build a clock or time-based animation.
- Experiment with mapping time variables to visuals.
📂 Deliverables
- Time-based sketch (GIF or live code).
- Reflection on time as design material.
📓 Journal Prompts
- How does your clock represent time differently from a real one?
- What does cyclical vs linear mean in your design?
📚 Resources
- John Cage, time-based works
- Clock examples in p5.js reference
- Coding challenge - Clock
- Time as a spiral
- Perspective on time
- International Atomic Time