Abstract
This paper suggests that alongside concerns regarding the future of precision timekeeping, there is also a need to discuss the future of timekeeping in social life. Pointing to the way that maps are created to fit a range of different user needs, I ask whether methods of telling the time might also be made more open to experimentation and redesign. In order to provide examples of how this could be done, I draw together a range of projects by artists and designers who are using clocks in unexpected ways. Looking at examples that particularly focus on social aspects of environmental issues, I show how the clock can be a useful tool for highlighting alternative ways of keeping time. Drawing on work in temporal design, developed in collaboration with designers Larissa Pschetz and Chris Speed, this paper suggests a new development in the field of horology, towards a critical horology that emphasises the political, social and environmental aspects of timekeeping.
This paper draws on ideas from a longer paper on ‘Liberating Clocks’ which is forthcoming in the journal New Formations.
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Notes
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Note that Hoy does not use ‘universal time’ in any technical sense here but rather refers to a somewhat vague idea of astronomical time.
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Acknowledgements
The author wishes to acknowledge the support from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Connected Communities Programme during this work (grant number AH/J006637/1).
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Bastian, M. (2017). Liberating Clocks: Exploring Other Possible Futures. In: Arias, E., Combrinck, L., Gabor, P., Hohenkerk, C., Seidelmann, P. (eds) The Science of Time 2016. Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, vol 50. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59909-0_41
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59909-0_41
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