Wednesday 11 January 2017

The Concept of Time - BCOP100

In our lecture today we explored the concept of time, how it changes, and how it affects our day-to-day lives. 

Time is something that constrains our everyday: we have to be somewhere or do something at a certain time. However time is a dynamic thing, we spend our time doing different things throughout history. We've gone from telling the time with the sun, to analogue clocks/watches, and now we can tell the time using our phones. Even simple things like setting an alarm can now be done using our smartphones, which would have been unbelievable to people 20 years ago - "times have changed". 

Some people say that time doesn't exist, and that it is completely fictional. I would have to disagree with this. Time itself is undoubtedly a real thing, however the way in which we measure it is fictional. If there was no time at all then we would cease to exist. Time is constantly moving from what was the future, to the present and then becoming the past. If time didn't exist then everything would just be the present at one singular moment and that would be it. However is the way that we measure it, and what words we use (ascribe) to explain this process which is man-made. Time has always continued to move millions of years before humanity even existed, it's just that we have made it into valued intervals in order for us to understand, organise and measure each moment passing - and each moment that is expected to pass. 

Take the example of a cat. Cats can't read clocks, and so don't have any understanding of the concept of 12o'clock for example.  However this is not to say that they don't exist in time or experience time. They still age and wake up in the morning. They still have their own daily routines. The only difference is that they don't have any quantitative measure of time. This shows that time exists independently from our measure of time. Time isn't man-made or fictional, but the way that humanity monitors it is. 

Others may argue that the statement 'time doesn't exist' would still be false, as the word itself 'time' is a manmade concept/thing. Although this is partly true, the concept that the word describes/represents still exists. Like the example of a plant. If I said that the word 'plant' isn't real (just like every name for something is made up) this doesn't mean that the physical object doesn't then exist. We then just ascribe a different word to it in order for humanity to understand the concept. Therefore, although the name 't-i-m-e' is made up, the concept behind it is still undoubtedly real. 

In addition to this, our measure of time isn't perfect. We have to have leap seconds and years in order for our quantitive measure to keep up with the spinning and orbit of earth. Time is constant, but it is humans who decided to pinpoint a rotation of the earth as a day, and an orbit of the sun as a year. This is the part that is fictional.  If we took it away, time would still continue to pass as it has always done. 

Time in Illustration
We also explored how the passing of time can be represented in art. The example of Salvador Dali's 'The Persistence of Memory' is a very obvious piece of art when thinking about time, as it depicts several clocks. 

'The Persistence of Memory', Salvador Dali (1931)

I think what Dali is trying to show in this piece is how time is constantly 'melting away'. Even in this fantasy dream world, it is impossible for time to slow down or even stop. Instead it continues to move against everyone's will, even when you want the singular moment to last for longer. 

Another way that time can be conveyed in illustration, is in comics. Typically the gaps in-between each frame (the gutter), can be altered to show the passing of time - the width is proportionate to the length of time passing between the two scenes. This pause also allows the reader to fill in the gaps, and to interpret what happened in that moment, by taking into consideration: the duration of time, and the events in the two neighbouring scenes. 

Our Task
In response to the lecture, we were set the task of creating an illustration that depicts a typical day for us. I decided to create a series of line drawings of scenes from my viewpoint, adding colour to just sections of the image. I then layered them on top of each other to create a jumble of lines and colours, which almost creates a single 'memory' of a day.

My view when waking up & going to bed

On the bus in the morning

Walking to PCA

On my way back on the bus

Everything combined

The colours chosen in each scene were reflective of the time of day, i.e pink = sunrise, and blue = night. I also like how the colours can be linked together as a cycle, as the blue can lead onto the pink and so on. 


I could have created more than 4 frames, and had initially planned to do so, however I didn't want to make the final image too complicated. In the final image I still wanted to be able to pick out each individual scene, so I felt like the 4 images combined would be sufficient.

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