Statements
Contextual Statement - Studio VI - ctec709
What is time? Is it something that actually exists, or is it something humans created to be productive and to feel important!. According to Albert Einstein theories on relativity; yes time does exist and it is called spacetime (Toth, 2017). This project aims to explore the perception of utilized time using sensory interactions. A creative approach will be taken to set up an installation where the audience will be able to understand different sensory interactions and their time perception, also the connection between cross-sensory interactions.
We live in an age where advanced technologies are embedded in almost all aspects of life. Almost all of us are engaged with the world through electronics and these electronics are made to keep us occupied throughout the day. Even with all of these distractions, we still feel the repetition of life itself following the same routine day after another. According to Dr David Eagleman (Fora.tv, 2012), this feeling of repetition is caused by the lack of novelty we experience during our day to day life.
When we are young and trying to understand the world, we see the novelty in everything. As a result, our brain capture more frames of memories, and at the end of the day we feel overwhelmed and satisfied with the time we spend doing many things. But for an adult, everyday life is just another day with the same repetitions which we already have memories of and our brain skip collecting more frames of the same memories (Fora.tv, 2012). As a result at the end of a day, we are bored and unsatisfied about how we spend our time and we feel it is useless and unproductive.
How do we stop our brain from skipping frames that we already have seen and how do we perceive novelty by tricking our brain? According to Dr Eagleman (2008), perceived frames, in other words, time, can be distorted by an oddball-in-a-sequence along with stimulus complexity, saccades, and magnitude of such events. For this particular project, I will be using the odd-ball-in-a-sequence phenomenon to illustrate the different sensory perceptions of time.
Odd-ball-in-a-sequence basically means an unexpected change on a series of events and in this particular project, the marble that represents a roller-coaster change its track automatically during a single loop due to the Mobius strip design.
References:
Eagleman, D. M. (2008). Human time perception and its illusions. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 18(2), 131-136. doi:10.1016/j.conb.2008.06.002
Fora.tv. (2012, November 16). David Eagleman: How to Slow Down Your Perception of Time [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f21ERcDBGeU
Toth, V.T. (2017). Does Time Really Exist? According To Physics, That's The Wrong Question Entirely. Retrieved 11 September 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/11/28/does-time-really-exist-according-to-physics-thats-the-wrong-question-entirely/
Conceptual Statement - Studio VI - ctec709
Novelty, something extremely important to our lives that makes everything exciting but fades away with time. The main goal of this project is to understand the relationship between novelty and how our perception of time change when we perceive novelty in everyday life.
When we are young and exploring the world, almost everything seems new and exciting but when we grow older novelty wears off with time. But as humans, we perceive this as time flows fast, and life becomes boring. We feel like we haven’t done much for the time we’ve spent doing whatever we do. How to bring novelty to the things we’ve already seen and done? The answer is actually we don’t, we can’t, but instead, we can trick our brain, create an illusion using several methods (Eagleman, 2008). In this particular instance, I am using the oddball-in-sequence method to create an illusion.
The installation consists of two circular shaped pipes fixed on to a base by using laser cut MDF frames. Although it looked like two separate rings to a naked eye, in actual fact the Mobius strip concept has been used to create an infinite loop between the two pipe loops. By using an air compressor, a continuous flow of air has been given to both of the loops but in actual fact, only one air flow is in operation and the second one just an illusion. Due to the whole pipe being one continuous loop, it needs only one air flow. There will be some glass marbles for the viewers to play and interact with the loop. A user can put a marble on to the loop and it will travel inside the loop and will end up inside the second loop which is not the one it started on and vice versa. But a notice will be displayed at the end of the installation where the users will only be able to see after interacting with the object(s) explaining the switching of the marbles.
There are few hidden elements to this installation. The important fact is that it is a very simple design which anyone can play with and have some fun. And the second important thing is that this installation has some elements which unfold after initial interactions.
Instance 1 - User does not notice the switching of the marble and only realize it after reading the notice
In this instance, curiosity will take over the users mind and will rush to the installation again to confirm this phenomenon. And the user will try to reverse engineer the design to understand how it is done.
But the second interaction is also with the same object doing the same things. The only difference is the perspective and the unexpected thing happened with the marble. Due to this, it will be a novel experience even though the user has already experienced it once before.
Instance 2 - User will realize that the marble is switching the loops
In this instance, the user will try to do the same thing as of instance 1 after the first interaction and due to the fact that it not the result that the user expected it will be a novel experience until the user reverses engineer the design.
This project was completed by using a combination of methodologies. Action research was used at the beginning of the project followed by a heuristics and design thinking process. There were many stages of prototyping creating different versions of the design to test the concept and the final output follows a minimalized simplistic design.
References:
Eagleman, D. M. (2008). Human time perception and its illusions. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 18(2), 131-136. doi:10.1016/j.conb.2008.06.002