amelia gan - Seeing Time

Harvard University, Graduate School of Design
ADV 9672: Mediums Proseminar, Fall 2021
Instructor: Allen Sayegh

To frame the analysis of language and time, this exploration divides itself into a few dimensionalities:

0-to-3D: Conception of Space-Time through Metaphors

2D: Real-Symbolic-Imaginary Time

2-to-3D: Tools and Interfaces

3D++: Spatializing Time

Zero-dimension would be one of thoughts, where time is conceptualized into space through metaphors and syntax. As that thought solidifies into words, a dimensionality is given, transitioning the thought from zero-to-three dimensional space. The exploration then retracts to further examine the second-dimensional, approximation of Real-time through the Symbolic (order) and Imaginary (representation). Symbolic time refers to the rules and order in that time is framed, where calendars can be seen as the visualization of that structure. Imaginary time, an internalized image of the ideal can be read through perspectives (or a lack of) in paintings. Oscillating between the two and three dimensions, the exploration interrogates the building of time perception through the tools and interfaces we employ. As mediums draw their time-frame from culture, it, in turn, is an echo chamber in crystallizing our directionality of time through gesture. To test the concept of metaphorical space-time, the project exploits the operation of ‘mirroring’ as a reframing of ‘real-time’.

excerpt from 0-to-3D

SCRIPTING TEMPORAL PATHS

3D-to-2D

horizontal path continuously overlayed

vertical path continuously overlayed

vertical path

circular path

knot loop

mouse as 'disruptor'

using slit photography as a precedent, the source image (webcam input) is remapped onto various temporal path as a first attempt to manipulate 'real-time'; cameras made with p5js. (hover over image for caption)

click on the links below to use some of the paths created.

click on your mouse to capture a frozen image at any point in time.

scroll down to see input video that is being manipulated.

traces of linear 'real-time'

mouse as an actuator to 'disrupt' linear 'real-time'.

The idea draws from auxiliary words in Chinese used as temporal expression ‘actuator’ to action verbs

SPATIALIZING

2D-to-3D

Real-time video capture with path manipulations are projected onto cloths of various transparency arranged both linearly and non-linearly. The images above are from the proseminar presentation in December 2021.

special thanks to Ahnaf Chowdhury & Anis Farid for ideating with me