Designing for time

“There is more to life than increasing its speed”. -M.K Gandhi

Time is one of the consequences of man's eternal quest for bringing order out of chaos by nurturing his understanding of the sun and celestial bodies into forms such as sun dials, clepsydra, astrolabe, candle clocks, pendulum clocks, wrist watches and even atomic clocks. Along his path through history, 'order' took new meanings of 'improving lives' through industrialization but at the cost of mass production, massacre, democratization, efficiency and profit, but by disconnecting our values and belief.

We now live in an information age where cars, airways, emails, online shopping, instant messaging, electronic pagers and fast-food are created for his comfort. But are we really comfortable at all? Cultures and practices are lost in a mechanical world that purely values functionality and use, suffering from immense 'time poverty'. Our pace of lives drives us to ask questions such as those of our neighbour's names, or the last time we really enjoyed a meal with friends and family. Our obsession of time has turned our lives into a road-runner show, which calls for a desperate measure to take control back into the quality of our lives by slowing down and revisiting our past.

In this project, I chose to investigate this problem by developing a series of objects by tinkering and exploring new methods of communication for slowing down in a broad sense of real-world and psychological provocation using elements of irony, satire and play.

Object 2: Peep

This clock brings thought and awareness in people about their obsession of time by the simple act of tracking ones obsession. Every time a person wants to know time, they literally have to peep into the clock. Due to its hidden nature, time isn't visually available. Hence, it breaks the notion of taking time for granted. It 'attracts' attention and emotion towards the object through capacitive sensing to make time visible for the user.

Object 3: Road runner-Coffee mug

This object is a coffee mug with an inbuilt vibration system extending its connectivity through a cable to a detachable external timer. This object is designed to play a satire on the modern society and our beliefs. S/he can set their timer according to a break duration. Once the timer is set, it cannot be stopped until it activates the alarm. The alarm is triggered as a reminder when one minute still remains and alerts people with a harsh vibration reminding them about their fast paced lifestyle.

Object 4: Road runner-Lunch plate

A futuristic lunch plate with a timer and a vibration alarm system, that is embedded internally in the object. This object behaves in the similar manner as the coffee mug, but creates a larger stimuli upon the user owing to its futurisitc appearance. The intention behind the coffee mug and this lunch plate is to instigate people to re-think and strive for a better quality life by making them experience the worst kind of time poverty situations one could encounter.

Project Credits: Arshad Pathan, Mayank Loonker, Jignesh Khakhar, Ujjval Panchal

Thanks to: Anuradha Reddy, Siddarth Mankad, Sumit Pandey

Studnet: Sunil Vallu

NMD-09