19/08 2019
Telling the Time | Speculative design workshop and exhibition
Media Mediterranea, Metamedia Lab, News
Metamedia Association in collaboration with the Department of Visual Communications (Arts Academy in Split) has organized speculative design workshop under the title ”Telling the Time: A Speculation in Designing Hybrid-Languages of Time”, which took place in Community Center Karlo Rojc in Pula, 12-17th August 2019. The workshop was led by speculative and discursive designer Ted Hunt. After the workshop, the participants had the opportunity to exhibit and present their outcomes on Media Mediterranea 21 festival, on uspon Franje Glavinića.
The subject of the workshop was critical rethinking of measuring and perceiving time. The concept of the workshop was based on the so-called Mediterranean approach to speculative design which could be defined as an approach that deals with the peripheral parts of the Europe and which analyzes global issues from a local perspective. Inspired by a selection of quotes from Einstein’s Dreams and the ideas of Hakim Bey, the participants were speculating about ”temporal autonomous zones” of the islands of the Bay of Pula and Brijuni Islands.
Temporal Autonomous Zone 001
Nola Bokun and Milica Denković
This is a world in which time is not fluid, parting
to make way for events.
Instead, time is a rigid, bonelike structure,
extending infinitely ahead and behind, fossilising
the future as well as the past. Every action, every
thought, every breath of wind, every flight of birds
is completely determined, forever.
– Einstein’s Dreams
”The location where our time concept occurs is a little island called Sv. Andrija located near Pula in Istria. There lives Andrija – a man whose every life moment, from birth to death, is predetermined and written in a schedule, which he hasn’t got access to. He does not know when things will happen, but he knows that they will happen in a particular order. Not only physical activities, but also thoughts and feelings are predetermined by higher instances. Sometimes he has hints of feelings of rebellion, but they soon fade away, because his thoughts are not his and his moves are just muppet show. He is precision. He is a clock. He is an observer of his own life, just like you are an observer of this exhibition. Similar to the concept of cinema or theater, for every action that he has to make, there is one ticket to be used; 100 tickets a day, for all of his actions. Every morning a ticket block is waiting for him on his bed. He needs a ticket for everything, even for his own birth and death. Andrija has been the only spectator of his whole life, but now, do you want to come for the final show?”
Temporal Autonomous Zone 002
Ana Nikšić and Mirna Peteh Kazija
In this world, time is a local phenomenon. Two
clocks close together tick at nearly the same rate.
But clocks separated by distance tick at different
rates, the farther apart the more out of step.
What holds true for clocks holds true also for the
rate of heartbeats, the pace of inhales and
exhales, the movement of wind in tall grass. In
this world, time flows at different speeds in
different locations.
– Einstein’s Dreams
Temporal Autonomous Zone 003
Nabil Almanssour and Petra Matić
Suppose that time is not a quantity but a quality,
like the luminescence of the night above the
trees just when a rising moon has touched the
treeline.
Time exists, but cannot be measured. In a world
where time is a quality, events are recorded by
the colour of the sky, the tone of the boatman’s
call on the Aare, the feeling of happiness or fear
when a person comes into a room. Instead
events glide through the space of the
imagination, materialized by a look, a desire.
– Einstein’s Dreams
”Visit the rocky and pebbly beaches of Prison Island, from which you can ease yourself into the clear and warm waters of the Atlantic Sea on this day trip from Pula. Take a short boat ride and enjoy your summer to the fullest!”
Prison Island Kozada
”Kozada Island, also known as Prison Island, lies about 15 min by boat from Pula. The island was formerly an Austro-Hungarian hydroplane base in the beginning of 21st century. It saw use as temporary waste storage area from the luxurious lifestyle destination that is Brijuni National Park until the waste was transported to Africa and Middle East. Today it is an institution for people who have broken the law and thus have been deprived of their freedom. Crime is rapidly increasing in European Union. People are arriving bringing their problems, bringing drugs, bringing crime, changing the very European culture and opposing the aims of European existence. Kozada Island is the first prison island in the Republic of Croatia and unless we stop illegal immigration, we will soon have to open another one.”
Temporal Autonomous Zone 004
Curvy
Ivan Đukez and Tea Zbašnik
In this world, there are two times. There is
mechanical time and there is body time.
The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive
pendulum or iron that swings back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth. The second
squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The
first is unyielding, predetermined. The second
makes up its mind as it goes along. Each time is
true, but the truths are not the same.
– Einstein’s Dreams
”This project aims to shine a light on general lack of understanding of opposite personality types (which are based on their different experience of time). ever-present, production-oriented, linear interpretation of time as a concept which can be divided into fixed elements, quantified and measured presents only one way of seeing/ feeling/ experiencing time.
By using Curvy, every individual creates? a ‘a time measuring tool’ with which they can instinctively (and subconsciously) take a personality test. Unlike other personality tests (or time measuring devices), by creating a tangible language, it becomes possible to communicate regardless of any language or culture-based barriers.”
Temporal Autonomous Zone 005
Genesis
Konrad Kropf and Marijana Šincek
Imagine a world in which people live just one
day. Either the rate of heartbeats and breathing
is speeded up so that entire lifetime is
compressed to the space of one turn of the earth
on its axis – or the rotation of the earth is slowed
to such a low gear that one complete revolution
occupies a whole human lifetime. Either
interpretation is valid. In either case, a man or
woman sees one sunrise, one sunset.
In this world there is no time to loose. Birth,
schooling, love affairs, marriage, profession, old
age must all fit within one transit of the sun.
– Einstein’s Dreams
How does it work?
GENESIS noun
The origin of something, when it is begun or starts to exist.
LYSIS noun
The disintegration of a cell by rupture of the cell wall or membrane.
Genesis works almost like a hand watch. Difference between a normal hand watch and Genesis is that Genesis is placed on the inside of your wrist and it has six spikes that are implanted under your skin. Implants decrease the serotonin levels in the human body throughout the twelve stages of the simulation. With every new stage participant get alarmed on the device screen, informing them of the serotonin levels dropping.
The simulation lets you experience the entirety of the human life in one day. You experience 12 stages from birth to death. The serotonin levels decrease with each stage. Participants experience melancholy and therefore they are getting older. Final stage called Lysis ends with last minute serotonin increase which lets the participant leave the simulation happy and satisfied.
