PROJECT OVERVIEW
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PROTOTYPES
EVALUATION
PEOPLE
EVENTS

Prototypes : Objective / Subjective Time
This visualization was featured as a part of the exhibition at Borås art museum in May 2000 called Informativ konst och långsam teknologi (Informative Art and Slow Technology).

The visualization is a play with the notion of time, where the objective time - i.e. the one we measure with clocks - is put in contrast to the notion of subjective time, which is controlled by some activity, for example the amount of people passing through a door.

To represent "objective" time we have mapped the time to the color of the outer, surrounding field. At midnight it is black, then the colour slowly gets brighter as time goes by, and by noon it is white. It then starts to change back into black during the second half of the day. This effect is achieved by slightly changing the colour of the field once a minute. The nuance is changed according to an hour-long scheme that starts out by increasing (or, during the second half of the day, decreasing) the R value in the RGB-code by one every minute during 20 minutes, repeating this procedure with the G and B values. Thus, every hour, on the hour, the R, G and B values will be the same, making the colour of the composition a nuance of grey. In this way the darkness of the field will show what time of day it is, and the nuance (i.e., slightly red, blue or green) of the field will show how much of the hour has passed. While the very slow changes in colour and abstract code of a RGB-value will prevent most people from perceiving it, this is in fact a real clock that displays exactly what hour and what minute it is.

The notion of "subjective" time is represented by making the colour of the center field reflect the number of "events" that have passed, e.g., the amount of digital communication or the number of visitors to the office accumulated during the day. The colour of this field is updated in the same way as the other one, except that it is updated whenever an event takes place, and not when a certain time has elapsed.

The visualization is featured in the paper Informative Art: Using Amplified Artworks as Information Displays, presented at DARE 2000, in Elsinore, Denmark.

Bus Composition
Weather Composition
Forecast Composition
E-mail Composition
Motion Painting
Stone Garden
Objective/Subjective Time
Campbell Clock
Activity Wallpaper