Project #3 Experimental Clock

'Head in between two time zones'

This experimental clock depicts how my brain thinks about time. It's split between two time zones just as my heart and brain feel. The shape in the middle represents my heart and the way it rotates represents the time passing; however, when I'm thinking about a certain timezones, I'm always in the opposite one. Clicking the mouse in timezone A (left) lights up time zone B, and the more I click the denser it becomes. Similarly, clicking on time zone B lights up time zone A. This mechanism represents the amount of times I think about the other time zone and the energy it takes to do that. I track two time zones whenever I'm in touch with my family or thinking about my home country on the other side of the world.

Design Process

I began by ideating and brainstorming 3 different ways of tracking time. Considering that “time” is moving forward in all three. I created 3 design sketches shown below.

The first sketch, shown above, portrays how time moved in between time zones, for me, for two years. The yellow parts of the sketch represent the main time zone which I lived in. The blue parts represent the time zones which I was traveling to. There's a pattern of going back and forth to the country I lived in. The idea here is to track time in seconds and have it translated to months for quicker viewing. As time moves sections light up. The canvas is split into two zones vertically.

The second sketch, shown above, also divides the canvas into two with the addition of a brain in the middle, when hovering over part A (left Y zon) of the canvas the brain turns yellow, portraying where my head's at. Same applies to when hovering over part B, the brain turns blue.

My third is more complicated than the previous two; it mixes several functions. 2 brainstorming sketches show above. I started off by splitting the canvas vertically in half to display two time zones. Then as time begins moving forward, zone A (left side) lights up from 7:00 AM till 11:59 PM of the same day and then becomes dark from 12:00 AM till 6:59 AM the next day. Same applies to zone B, reversly. Since I'm comparing between time zones where the difference in time is 7 hours, there is an overlap of the time where I am awake, in time zone A at the same time people are awake in time zone B. I decided to make this overlap 11 hours. My other feature in the third sketch is having the brain light up in yellow when time is rolling in zone A, and in green when two time zones overlap, and lastly in black when time is rolling in zone B. Noting that, the way rolling time is portraid in timezones when people are awake is through the coloring of the canvas vertically as time progresses. I ended up combining a bit of the 2nd and 3rd ideas to execute my sketch. It passes my message along in the simplist and my most complicated philosophy of time.