Maria Isabel Soeiro e Sá Mayol 2024

Time in the Name of Utility

6643 words | 51mins

This essay attempts to stop time, to pause vicious cycles of time consumption and to break and dissect conceptions of time. Right now, it invites you to slow down and to grasp the present, and hopefully, to stay there. This sentence that has just been read by you, now belongs to the past, and so do you. Stick to this current moment, not to the future. Abstain from looking back. You have just experienced mighty time. The dream of this essay is to live it, not to let it pass through you.

INTRODUCTION

There is a tendency to constantly keep moving on with our lives and to never look back. Finding the time to pause is unrealistic in a society that repeatedly propels us forward at high speeds. It often becomes overwhelming to manage such a fast-paced lifestyle while attempting to follow a plan for the future. Imagine you are driving a car while being in a rush to arrive to a certain destination; you have one hand on the wheel and the other on a large unpractical map, trying not to lose focus of the road ahead of you. Nevertheless, in today's age you would be more inclined to hold a screen instead of a map. Yet, this device is unreliable, as the routes that were intended to guide you become biased and distract you from your own sight. These devices are products of social media, consuming your attention and influencing the direction of your driving.

Time may be viewed as an endless race where we eagerly compete against ourselves. Despite our unawareness of it, we keep sprinting and rushing, where pausing and taking a deep breath is considered a setback. We run against our deepest individual desires, our intuition, our primal needs of stillness and quietness. Yet we are given wrist watches and app calendars to feel grounded, a soothing sense of control. Still, we perpetually run out of time, wishing time could stretch. While we desire to return to the vague peacefulness of a nostalgic past, we yearn for the blissful etherealness of our childhood.

The first chapter mentions the schedule society has invented, one that thrives on a goal-oriented and work driven environment. This is not always compatible with every person as it fails to adapt to the demands of each job. It works against creative jobs, forcing designers and artists to work under unrealistic and stressful time constraints.

The following chapter refers to the amount of time we spend behind a screen and how, whether consciously or not, it influences our time management and behaviour. Social media naturally acts as a subtle, yet persuasive, powerful platform to broadcast ideologies and to reinforce user's tendencies. Not only does it mirror society, but it also normalizes and perpetuates the status quo.

The last chapter takes a step back to analyse a variety of views around time, based on authors I have researched as well as people I have interviewed. Time is broken down into scientific, cultural, biological, and philosophical theories.

"The more firmly you believe it ought to be possible to find time for everything, the less pressure you'll feel to ask whether any given activity is the best use for a portion of your time". (Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for mortals 2023)

After spending so many hours working towards the prosperity of others, there is a scarcity of time left to pause. Either way, we still feel that time flies, the passage of time is ruthlessly oblivious to our needs and interpretations. Being busy not only occupies our time as it also occupies our minds, dedicating ourselves to fulfil what we understand as useful. As a result, our mental unavailability leaves no space to question what we are truly doing with our time. As John Lennon once said, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans" (Lennon, 1981). We run out of time to live in the moment. We are too distracted with our plans, as we rely on them to attribute meaning to what we do in the present. No questions asked, we conform with time and the rules society has indoctrinated us with. Ultimately, this is all we have ever known.

CHAPTER 1

Time in the Presence of a Capitalist Society

"Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly." (Aurelius & Gill, Marcus Aurelius: Meditations 2013)

There is a sense of stoic wisdom in accepting fate and trusting what is certain, relying on Human senses and letting things flow. Accepting what is yet to come and admitting what is beyond our command as a way of releasing pressure and shutting down feelings of doubt. Plainly experiencing Time for what it is. Estimates, aspirations, and bets are all pointless to our awareness. Yet we keep religiously practicing them, almost acting as a placebo. We lift our heads and look up to the future while floating away from the lucidness of the present. We evade the undeniable solidity of the ground beneath us. It is a delusional escapism of the guarantee of death, so we can only hope to know the future with all our strength, even if we turn our backs to the present.

"[...] I suspect humans are the only animals that know the inevitability of their own deaths. Other animals live in the present. Humans cannot, so they invented hope." (Kaufman, I'm Thinking Of Ending Things 2020)

When it comes to time, hope is a system of attempting to hold the future by visualizing it with elaborate schemes. Such schemes are nothing but proposals, ambitious bright projections to illuminate the vast obscurity ahead of us. We can hope to predict the future, to feel the warmth of a candle gently revealing darkness. Nonetheless, the only thing we can count on is the existence of the end of the road. How and when will we get there is hopelessly unknown. In Western modern society, hope looks like to-do lists. We fill our days with tasks and goals aimed towards medium and long-term results. It keeps us occupied for the day while being preoccupied with tomorrow. There is an eagerness to accomplish what has been assigned to us that pressures us to meet expectations no matter what. We try to balance our actions and prioritize them to reach something prospective while consequently neglecting our wellbeing. As Amelia Horgan argues in her book "Lost in work: Escaping capitalism" working transcends our daily lives, clashing with our ability and availability to enjoy ourselves.

The figure below is an American view of a timeline that illustrates this mentality and how it leads to a linear, future-oriented perception of time.

Figure 1: Lewis, Carving up American time 2020.

Each arrow in this timeline follows the same direction, moving ahead. Therefore, it establishes a relation of consequence to the previous arrow, reinforcing the weight of the present's actions. The "worries for February" are connected to how January's plans were performed, as well as if they have been fulfilled or not. Furthermore, the author of this image refers to society as profit-oriented where *"time is a precious, even scarce, commodity". *The present is appropriated with the intention of generating rewards in the near future. Lewis also explains that:

"The past is over, but the present you can seize, parcel and package and make it work for you in the immediate future." (Lewis, How different cultures understand time 2020)

This contemporary observation can be compared to the well-known quote by an American author and historian from the 19^th^ century. As Alice Morse Earle once said:

"The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no man. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present." (Earle, Sun Dials and roses of Yesterday 1971)

Despite having been written in contrasting eras, these observations are the product of a ruthlessly fast-paced, results-driven American society. They both share the same feelings of rush and the finiteness of time. Moreover, they emphasize the responsibility of present actions upon the construction of the future. Ironically, today is a potential gift to be collected at some point in the future after putting in the effort and hardwork. The present within the present relies on tomorrow. In other words, "Time is money" (Fisher & Franklin, 1770). This is the key difference between these two sentences.

"Work isn't just something we do for a fixed, albeit growing, number of hours a day. It is one process through which capitalist exploitation takes place and, as such, one of the main institutions through which capitalism is lived." (Horgan, Lost in work: Escaping capitalism 2021)

Time translates into money, labour, and plans. Consequently, so do our lives. Working in any sort of way becomes a routine, a daily exchange, merging with our personal life. Work is where we allocate the majority of our vital resources. Horgan describes people engaging in hustle culture, getting side jobs, working overtime, working on weekends and holidays, carrying out excessive workloads and accepting too many project proposals while freelancing, and monetising hobbies and interests. These practices contribute to the normalization and emphasis of workaholism. In a way, we are selling the ownership of our own time. In David Graeber's words, *"A worker's time is not his own; it belongs to the person who bought it" (Graeber, Bullshit jobs 2019). *A society where trading and even sacrificing hours for a bit more is a common aspiration. A society that commends and supports workaholics while segregating and vilifying unemployment or any form of idleness. As Graeber stated, idleness is seen as a problem, "or even as a sin".

However, some could argue that planning your days, being punctual, and defining deadlines are a way of controlling your time. A way to make the most out of the few hours of activity we are given and to strategically manage and direct our focus throughout their duration. This could become a way to take over your own time and command how this finite vital resource is being expended. In parallel to this, we define a budget based on the quantity of capital we possess. How much can we afford to consume without interfering with the balance of costs, without leading to an unsustainable lifestyle? It is a meticulous and calculated process of sum, deduction, and purge of whatever is unessential. Capital is then divided in fixed monthly expenses, crucial expenses, sporadic maintenance expenses, holiday expenses and capricious expenses. Time is money, time is spent as capital.

"Productivity [...] is most commonly associated with labour effectiveness in industry. In a broad sense productivity is the ratio of output to some or all of the resources used to produce the output. Labour productivity may be defined as 'output per unit of time' or 'output per labour hour'." (Barnes, Motion and time study: Design and measurement of Work 1988)

Time, such an abstract concept, becomes translated in terms that only our capitalist and cold society could bother to comprehend: labour. What counts is the utility that can be extracted from time, the proletariat's time. Time is valued by labour, and labour is valued by its swiftness and efficiency. The goal of profitable labour is to squeeze as much out of workers in as little time as possible. At whose profit? And at whose expense? This is where exploitation comes into play. We are stuck in a loophole, a prison locked by the frivolous promises of money decorated with aesthetic work routines, pretty timetables, and witty agendas.

"Work creeps over our leisure time, and it also extends into more of our lifetime, with more time spent in expensive training for work, and more time spent working as the possibility for retirement dwindles. All this work, or work-like activity, for a declining chance of getting a job." (Horgan, Lost in work: Escaping capitalism 2021)

We are trapped so that others can live a life of commodity. We are slaves to the clock; we are slaves to those whose hands become the clock's. And it is all in the name of productivity. All in the name of becoming a useful and reputed little spinning gear of a clock (member of society). All to gain a bit of money to live by. A lifetime transaction to live by.

The link between time and creativity & its effects on designers

"(...) creativity as a form of defiance- the dogged fortitude with which many attempt to pursue art, or music, or writing or poetry, serves as an antidote to the pointlessness of their 'real' paid work." (Graeber, Bullshit jobs 2019)

Amidst a hectic career, a race with no scruples, formal competitiveness, multitasking, and professionality, there is art. Art diverges from the chaotic organization of nine to five office jobs. Art does not run on chaos; it feeds from it. It can be one of the most freeing fields of expression and individuality, as it has the potential to create its own unconventional rules and to defy conventional ones. The senseless chaos that comes from the compliance with imposed socio-economic laws is an object of criticism to art. Art is the only medium that holds the freedom to deviate from this imposition, thus it can concisely question it and raise common issues.

Figures 2 and 3: Tehching Hsieh, One Year Performance 1981-1982 (Time Clock Piece)

Tehching Hsieh is an artist that ran from rules, illegally immigrating to New York from Taiwan with the dream of pursuing an art career. He adopted a refreshing performative approach to time in society while blending it with his own reality. The lines between his personal life and work life blended through his art. Hsieh drew inspiration from his mundane life and used that same reality in his "One Year Performance" (1980-1981), where he "subjected himself to the dizzying discipline of clocking on to a worker's time clock on the hour, every hour, for a whole year." (Pavillion, T. (ed.) (2017) Doing Time, TEHCHING HSIEH)

"Now, a lot of people look for answers in spirituality or different texts, but for me this is life. This is what life is: the passage of time. It's not about how to pass the time, but about the acceptance of the time passing. I know people think of my work as spiritual, but really it's just that I consume time. That's all." (Fevola, Performance artist Tehching Hsieh talks taking risks with Marina Abramovic 2017)

The creative process has its own timing. It requires patience, devotion, and vocation. It is the kind of process that cannot be automized nor optimized. It is uniquely untransmissible and unreproducible, not even by the astounding advances of Artificial Intelligence.

"While AI can assist artists in the creative process and expand the possibilities of art-making, it's not going to replace artists. Instead, there is great potential for a collaborative relationship between artists and AI, where AI serves as a powerful tool to enhance the creative process. Artists bring their unique perspectives, creativity, and ability to produce paradigm-shifting art that AI cannot replicate." (Logan, The impact of AI in creative industry 2023)

Creativity is the most pure and authentic kind of input, that will never be understood enough by a machine for it to be able to translate it into a unique output. In a way, the machine outputs are sourced from human inputs, hence human creativity is irreplaceable. Forcing or imitating artistic originality would corrupt it, defeating its purpose and making it visibly fake. Tehching understood this, as he embraced the art in his life. His creative process became a genuine reflection of his state of mind and own philosophy of living. By his own words, his art is about "wasting time and freethinking" (Hsieh & Heathfield, 2008). This stemmed from his reflections about time as well as his position in a self-centred exclusionary eighties society that pretended to be avant-garde. In fact, he created in the shadows of counterculture for most of his life, only gaining recognition in 2008.

"[...] typical designer routines prevent designers from enjoying a proper social life because they are overworked; however, they are not satisfied with the results" (Gosling, The links between creativity and Depression 2017)

Creating something from scratch, conceiving a new concept; innovating in the depths of a myriad of clichés, overused trends, repetition of the past, plagiarism and genius ideas requires a lot of effort. There is an intricate rhythm behind it, that combined with creativity, originates refreshing solutions. Designers are no strangers to this. They are used to walking through a route of methods and stages, from the very first step, to changes of direction and to walking until reaching the final destination. The creative route starts with an embryonic idea, then proceeding with the initial development, research of what has been done in the market, testing directions in order to exhaust possibilities, making versions of the idea, and then discarding the least viable ones ultimately to then reach the final product. As designers, we bring ideas to life, we conceive them, grow them, raise them, and then release them into the public, gaining momentum. These transmit a message and visually showcase it, they are shared around, they make a splash in an audience, opinions of acceptance neglect or rejection begin to form, engagement and interaction may occur. It is a laborious journey that demands so much of our imagination; our ability to execute what started as an aleatory, instinctive conviction that a mental image could become a reality.

"As creative people, design practitioners have several unique approaches when it comes to managing their time. Not only that their profession is project-based that makes it significantly time oriented, but also, their personal standards may affect the way to use their time." (Fathurrahman, Time and designer: Unveiling design practitioners' characteristics on time management, perfectionism, procrastination, and burnout 2020)

Yet, the design industry is known to exclusively function around limited time. Designers are no strangers to having their creativity being squeezed into inflexible deadlines often with unreasonable requests. Whatever you do, just 'shoot' ideas quickly and just get into it. There is no time for planning, no time to think about it. Just make something fast but make it good. Make it compelling to an audience that you barely had time to research into. Also add this and that and change this.

Designers find themselves being obligated to rush their process, to craft innovative, captivating products under pressure. This is not compatible with the amount of mental effort that it takes to generate ideas. It is counter-intuitive and unnatural, becoming draining, exhausting, and unsustainable in the long run. Artist's block, burnout, anxiety, and depression are some of the ways this turbulent lifestyle is affecting designers.

"Time management challenges that are caused internally by design practitioners are tension-based productivity, as some of the sample feel they work best under pressure or near the deadlines. They have perception that they have specific obligation to override their personal life with their work. These mindsets link to the overworking culture that may lead them to burnout." (Fathurrahman, Time and designer: Unveiling design practitioners' characteristics on time management, perfectionism, procrastination, and burnout 2020)

However, there is still no design brief without a strict deadline. As designers we keep being pushed into this unsustainable rhythm to drain our efforts as much as possible, in the least amount of time possible. All of this while keeping innovation and freshness as a priority, which is contradicting. Furthermore, because of the highly competitive environment, if you cannot adapt to these conditions, you will simply be replaced. And the problem is once again rooted in time, more specifically "too much work for too little time" (McCready, 2021), a common pattern in a capitalistic society.

CHAPTER 2

Social Media & Toxic Productivity

"We know time only indirectly by what happens in it, by observing change and permanence, by marking the succession of events among stable settings, and by noting the contrast of varying rates of change. [...]" (Kubler, The shape of time: Remarks on the History of Things 1962)

Time becomes a synonym of what you are obliged to do with it. The only way to perceive it is through attempting to manage it, through planning and defining time limits and constraints. Time is confined to a purpose, a function, a bus to catch, a class to attend, a dissertation to submit. We all experience time, what differentiates us from others is what we use it for. All with an aim, a structure, a dream. Everything revolves around the future, making you feel accountable for what you do with the present, since the past is beyond your concern.

"While we are enjoying ourselves online, we are giving platforms all kinds of information about ourselves. It's not just an issue of privacy. It's that our social tendencies, our capacities for care and interest in others, our concern for how we might come across to others are rendered intelligible to and profitable for companies." (Horgan, Lost in work: Escaping capitalism 2021)

An activity that goes beyond time awareness is scrolling. While doing it, it is easy to become numb and lose track of time, since the social platforms behind it are programmed to suck you in and hold your attention for as long as possible. Scrolling through short pointless clips, filling our minds with meaningless content, an activity unanimously considered to be a waste of time. Most people are conscious of this, yet despite all of social media's side effects and flaws, we still resort to it. As Horgan discusses, privacy is not the biggest concern about using it. There is a symbiotic relationship between the user and the platform, where the user benefits from the fast consumption of entertainment, while the platform benefits from their inputs. In other words, each time we click, scroll, swipe, or press a screen, these platforms register these inputs and generates an output linked to the user's profile. Such outputs contain information and data that could be sold, marketed, and used to perpetuate the cycle of compulsive scrolling.

"One might imagine that leaving millions of well-educated young men and women without any real work responsibilities but with access to the internet (...) might spark some sort of Renaissance. Nothing remotely along these lines has taken place. Instead, the situation has sparked an efflorescence of social media (...)." (Graeber, Bullshit jobs 2019)

American anthropologist David Graeber points out how, despite the internet's potential as a learning tool, by having the capacity to store and intuitively display great amounts of knowledge and culture, young generations are still (mostly) exclusively drawn to Instagram, YouTube, Twitter or TikTok. Having access to the internet on smartphones becomes a priority, not to dispose of search engines, but to access these contagious apps, where we unconsciously spend countless hours of our days. Social media never misses an opportunity to shape young susceptible minds by bombarding users with the sly shaming, the subtle manipulation and innocent social coercion, also called peer pressure. After all, it is all done objectively with an agenda in the landscape. They want to plan our lives as much as we want to plan our days. Or at least, to plan how we think about the future, affecting the present behaviour.

Figures 4-7: screenshots of Tik Tok accounts

This is where the "study routines", "focus mind games", "day in the life of", "work with me" come in. You are shown short TikTok videos of people like you, that you can relate to, studying in their clean, sterile desks in a well-lit environment free of any distractions. Except of course for the righteous iPad displaying a timer to let the audience know that they have been studying for 3 hours straight. Then a video theatrically recording the routine of a person's day pops up on your screen. The duration and hour of the day behind any activity are outlined in the video. They guide you through their morning, what they do, how they do it and, most importantly, when they do it. Remember to never wake up after 7 AM, never skip your skin care routine (you need to have one), make yourself a healthy breakfast, go for a run, perform your yoga exercises, journal your feelings away, go to work 2 hours in advance... These videos are not just showing you a glimpse of the content creator's lives. They are not sharing anything, they are performing, and while doing so you are inadvertently being coached. Above any suspicion, you are being given a set of instructions to follow in order to be like them. To be healthy, productive, and successful. What happens next?

While you let that unconsciously sink in, after comparing your daily routine to what you have just seen, an advert for an app to help you focus appears. A gateway to become a better you! To improve your concentration, assimilate the impeding passage of time more efficiently and to pull the brakes on "doomscrolling". And there is no better way to do it than spending more time behind your screen. The difference is that this time it will be spent on an app with mind soothing and rational mini games and tasks to work on yourself. What a beautifully planned out way to reflect upon the present time and start orienting your time more thoughtfully. At least now there is no comparison to other's routines. There are not model days nor timetables to follow. There is no being induced into believing how pointless and pathetic you are for not structuring your days and squeezing in as many "working hours" as you humanly can. With the absence of indirect shaming, you no longer feel guilty for being just the way you are. As it turns out, you are spending time and money on an app subscription to improve yourself. You are putting in the effort to become like the examples you saw.

At the same time, as you relapse on your cyclical, self-indulgent scrolling habits, a video of self-care pops up. A wholesome looking face and a feminine monochordist voice reminds you to look after yourself. To be a bit selfish sometimes, to take a day off to take care of your body and your mind, to spoil your senses. Light up your aromatic candles, eat the Ben and Jerry's cookie dough ice cream you have been craving, apply a face mask, binge watch your favourite show for the third time, take a long stress relieving bath, and indulge in the pleasures of doing absolutely nothing that contributes to your happiness. The long-term overarching idea of achieving happiness by doing what you are expected to with your life. Which is utilising your time in the most pragmatic way possible. But you are being given the green light to relax occasionally and moderately, to shift the focus to your own wellbeing.

"Productivity is a trap. Becoming more efficient just makes you more rushed, and trying to clear the decks simply makes them fill up again faster. Nobody in the history of humanity has ever achieved "work-life balance," whatever that might be, and you certainly won't get there by copying the "six things successful people do before 7:00 a.m." (Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for mortals 2023)

It is admissible to controllably rewind and slow down sometimes. You are being assured that it is normal and acceptable to do so, besides there is always tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. Until you realize you are trapped in a loop of self-blame, contradiction, illusion, and hypocrisy. This is how forty second videos publicize how you should spend the time you have left in this fleeting, futile life of yours. They stealthily infiltrate the way you think, leaving you in a corrosive, introspective state of comparison to others, hence the feelings of guilt for waking up late or not doing anything useful in a day. This is how media socially coerces minds. Because first and foremost, what we create with that media reflects where society is headed. And where it intends for its users to head to. This is where the problem lies. The underlying message that we must adopt the same lifestyles and act in a likeminded coordinated way. The missive that we need to become productive at all costs is toxic and degrading.

CHAPTER 3

Time Spent Exhaustively Questioning What Time Could Be

Artistic and cultural perceptions of time

Performance art is based in the present, it can only happen now, it is ephemeral and temporary. Photography is focused on the past; it exists to capture instances and visually record moments that have already happened. It registers a fraction of a second from a minute of a specific day in someone's life, evidencing that for posterity. While Design is all about the future, the innocence of spontaneity is absent. Behind the process of designing there is always an intention and deliberate decision-making catered to a target audience. Design exists for the public, who only gets to see and interact with the finished product, after it has been released.

"The temporal nature of performance has been an enduring preoccupation throughout Abramović's career, and one she has deeply engaged with: in creating works that explore what happens when a moment in time is stretched to its limits; in her interest in time as a perceptual dimension from which we have become disconnected; and as a metaphor for our own mortality." (Marina Abramović retrospective exhibition, 2023)

Throughout the years, Marina Abramović's work has transitioned from aggressiveness to stillness. Her most recent works depict profound physical and mental states of meditation.

Figure 8 and 9: (Walker, 2016) and picture taken by me at the 2023 Marina Abramović's exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London

A prime example of this different approach in her practice is her 2010 performance "The Artist is Present". In this performance, Abramović sat at a table in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. During the course of three months, she would sit everyday and await the public's participation by joining her at the table and simply staring at her for as long as they pleased. The artist then recorded the participant's facial expressions as well as her own. In this experiment, she explored human connection and bonding through the simple act of staying still and establishing eye contact. However, this simple activity proved to be incredibly powerful, as it triggered unexpected emotional responses from the audience. This is seen across the recordings of this performance, where some smile, while others cry, some show an empty oblivious stare, while others show diverse facial expressions. The absence of movement, action, and verbal communication, are propitious to a meditative state of nothingness, encouraging people to only pay attention to the moment. As the artist explains herself, "The performance is really about presence. You have to be in the here and now, 100 percent." (Abramović, 2009).

At its heart, Abramović's practice explores human presence, the connection to the current moment, and the surrounding environment, using performance art as a medium. She blindly dives into the now, diverging from memories of the past and fears of the future. This was inspired by her trips to Australia where she immersed herself in Aboriginal ways of living, studying their knowledge and traditions, particularly around time and space. This population believes that time is dissolved in a single unity, contrary to the Western belief that time is parallelly separated into past, present, and future. According to Aboriginal theory, time morphs according to what is dear and necessary to us, it is cyclical and adaptive. It is not depicted by a sharp, unbending linear arrow strictly moving towards one direction.

Figure 10: Sundaram, cyclical vs linear time 2013

"In many Aboriginal languages, there is an expression to convey the concept of 'long, long ago' -- a zone that also converges with the 'dreaming', creation-time, which is actually not a discrete time at all, but an ongoing process." (McGrath & Jebb, Long history, Deep Time: Deepening histories of place 2015)

Unlike aboriginal cultures, the past is typically seen as something disconnected and inconsequential to the present. It is common to bury aspects of our life, to forget about them as a coping mechanism that pushes us to carry on, to aimlessly move forward. What is currently being done, your present actions as well as future plans, overshadow the past. One can wonder what redemption, fault, regret, trauma and even history would look like in a society that lives neck in neck with the past. The past should not be covered, it should be discovered. Past shame and flaws should not be buried, but rather remembered and acknowledged. Facing what is ahead of us often requires reconciliation with the past. At the same time, there is nostalgia for the past, the memories we cherish and hold on to in awe.

Theories of Time

It is 2018, you are sitting at your desk doing some work, being productive. Suddenly, a faint memory of something that has yet to happen strikes you. You can see a reflection of your older self, sat at a desk, in a different room, watching a video about Space, the Universe and Time in quantum physics. Both of those versions of you are glancing at the future, contemplating existence. You realise this once you rejoin your older self. This vision has now transformed into the present, and it is slowly becoming a part of the past as you read this sentence. You have remembered how you foresaw the future in your past, once you have reached the present depicted in that timeline. In other words, you experienced Déjà vu.

"Nothing in known physics corresponds to the passage of time. Indeed, physicists insist that time doesn't flow at all; it merely is." (Davies, Time's passage is probably an illusion 2020)

The way we perceive time is a social construct, a clever, convenient way to fit such a colossal term in our narrow human minds. Western society has built empty compartments to quantify human life span and apply limits and constraints to it. Such compartments called days, months, and years stem from the disjointed misconception of the artificially cut past, present and future. Once again, an attempt to systemize time and labour. Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist argued that this misconception might happen because of two theories. The first is based on the fact that the memories in our brains originate in a unidirectional manner. Our brains gradually accumulate memories and store new information, a build-up of experiences and events located in a certain space. This idea of unidirectionality might influence our perception, leading us to believe that time flows in a constant direction, such as the flow of a river, when in fact it is a still pond of water.

The second theory consists of justifying our false perception of time with quantum mechanics. This is rooted in its indeterministic nature, fuelling the idea of an uncertain and unpredictable future that has yet to happen.

"Quantum indeterminism implies that for a particular quantum state there are many (possibly infinite) alternative futures or potential realities." (Davies, Time's passage is probably an illusion 2020)

One of the possible outcomes, that originated in a conjecture of the future, will actually become a reality. Consequently, this reality that was once an unforeseen, undetermined future, will become part of a now known past. This might then be confused with a narrative of time passage, from prediction to action and from action to result. When in fact time is not consequent, time is not getting from point A to B. We can measure that distance and its duration, but we cannot contradict the fact that time simply is.

Perhaps the phenomenon of Déjà vu is one of the few instances where we can truly experience time as a unity. It completely shatters the blunt three parted division we have attributed to time. This experience might tear a window to the future while living in the present, allowing us to curiously peak into the abstract, uncanny, and oddly familiar landscape that patiently awaits us. It is difficult to pin down, hard to describe, it almost feels as real as a dream or a hallucination. After all, it is unconceivable to most of us that the present coexists with the future and the past. Maybe Déjà vu embodies a glimpse of the fourth dimension, that transcends our human recognitions of time, briefly and cynically unravelling reality.

"We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future." (Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Message, 1967)

Our conceptions of time may be a product of the limited capacity of our minds and inability to process such complex ideas around something as commonly experienced as time. However, these conceptions may also arguably be reinforced by the future-oriented, harshly productive society we live in. Similarly to horses, our vision of time is obstructed by blinkers. Visors that cut our peripheral vision. Maybe we were born with an inherently deficient vision, but the use of these metaphorical blinkers has been normalized. It is in the capitalist society's best interest to keep us blindly and mindlessly moving forward, neglecting the past and indulging in what has been planned for us. It is comforting to look ahead and to be able to see it clearly. It is anaesthetically pleasing; it puts us at ease with the daunting ideas of death and existentialism involving the future. Once we have the blinkers on, we will be ready to race once we have a bright light placed right in front of us. An alluring career, an exciting goal, an appetising dream, a promising contract ahead; a pre-meditated cycle of studying, working, retiring that gives this race purpose. As you rush, sprint, trot, and overtake, you slowly but steadily forget the reason why you keep chasing that carrot. You try to look towards other directions, but your vision is blocked by the blinkers. Then, you return to your old customs, a conformist, obedient racing horse that simply fills its purpose of utility. It is all you have ever known, inhabiting an endless field shaken by rumbles of the sprinting racehorses.

"Biological time consists of uninterrupted durations of statistically predictable lengths: each organism exists from birth to death upon an 'expected' lifespan." (Kubler, The shape of time: Remarks on the History of Things 1962)

We are regulated by our body's internal clock as much as we are monitored and ruled by the socio-political clocks. The only thing we can take for certain is that, somewhere in a timeline, there is a beginning and an end, a cycle recorded by nature and then rationalized by us. From birth to death, health to illness, lucidity to dementia, dependence to autonomy, waking up to going to sleep, energy to exhaustion, fertility to menopause, menstruation to ovulation, tranquillity to fury. Our bodies physically feel time, as their vitality gradually and proportionately dissipates, the progression towards the end. In addition to the functionality of this wise organic clock, there is a timer and a personal chronometer. A chronometer to record the length of biological phases and a timer to accordingly trigger a response. The majority of existing organisms possess a deep intrinsic knowledge around when to do things. Our bodies purely know when it is time to eat, rest, focus, sleep and wake up. Furthermore, each body has an individual sense of timing in conformity to lifestyle, behavioural patterns, age, and sex.

"Humans show large inter-individual differences in organising their behaviour within the 24-h day---this is most obvious in their preferred timing of sleep and wakefulness. Sleep and wake times show a near-Gaussian distribution in a given population, with extreme early types waking up when extreme late types fall asleep. This distribution is predominantly based on differences in an individuals' circadian clock." (Roenneberg et al., Epidemiology of the human circadian clock 2007)

As a matter of fact, a few real-life examples of different people's clocks come to my mind. From an Italian friend who puts to practice the idiom "Dolce far niente", translated to "the sweetness of doing nothing". As he does not wish to accomplish anything with his day, the time he wakes up coincides with lunch time for most conventional people. He does not leave the house, neither does any chores or tasks; he does nothing but unwinding his mind. Yet he feels pressured to have done something with his day, as people cluelessly ask how his day was. Ironically, nothingness carries weight. Succumbing to doing nothing comes with feelings of guilt and shame. What was meant to restore your energy and harmlessly distract you from obligation is labelled by controversy and failure. It becomes "The disgrace of doing nothing" instead.

Conversely, in another informal interview I conducted, Laura comes to mind. An example of someone who is prestigiously loyal to her circadian clock since it does not contradict any social standards. Laura never wakes up with an empty head. Before ending her day, she meticulously crafts a plan in her head. As long as it falls within her control, she knows exactly how her day is going to unravel. Needless to say, she is admirably up by seven in the morning, ready to tackle her daily plan. She seems proactive as she commands her time. Or does she? There is an idea of discipline, dignity, and order in sticking to a routine. However, one may argue there is also a facet of obsession and monotony behind it. In the long term, repetition will become draining and inconsistent. Therefore, deviating from this scheduled routine is not only bound to happen, but also necessary. As much comfort and security as this mindset may provide, attempting to control time is as elusive as attempting to grasp it. It is beyond our human limitations; we may engineer time around our needs but ultimately, we are nothing but victims to time's impetus.

CONCLUSION

I ask you to glance at the clock sitting at the corner of your screen. I ask you to relocate.

To wait...

To exit the thoughts that surround you and to reunite with materiality. To take a break from reading and to situate yourself in space. To lift your head from the screen. To reclaim the present and to feel the absence of productivity. To breathe each second in and out of your lungs. To ruminate on each minute. To fill this moment with blankness.

To fill it with the redundancy of my words as they drift further from the motive of my writing. Then I ask you to feel the emptiness of this sentence. It serves absolutely no purpose but to lead your mind to a halt. For once, to be full of nothing. To read nothing for the sake of nothing. To merely reduce yourself to existing, to exist in nothing more than the present.

Do not turn a blind eye on the present, assimilate it and let it gently dissolve into your past. Do not surrender to the security of repetition, do not disguise life with predictability, do not fall at the knees of demand and expectation. Do not be a stoic guard of your time, time guards you instead. Do not let production fuse with meaning, nor worthiness. Do not let your time be weaponized into utility. Do not feel fear of falling into emptiness, embrace its virtues. Do not perceive it as an injury, find the pleasure in pausing and the humanity in stopping. Do not let your dear day overflow with debts to the future. You owe it to no one but yourself. Do it for the sake of your future self, to reminisce a past without regret and to live for the sake of today. We may be powerless at the feet of Time, but we are powerful at the hands of a clock. Let its hand become your own. Live time in the name of yourself.

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night."
(Thomas, In country sleep and other poems 1952)

LIST OF FIGURES

  1. Lewis, R. (2020) Carving up American time, How Different Cultures Understand Time. Available at: https://culturallymodified.org/how-different-cultures-understand-time-best-of/ (Accessed: 14 January 2024).

  2. Hsieh, T. and Kelly, S. (2019) Tehching Hsieh, One Year Performance , West Den Haag. West Museumkwartier. Available at: https://www.westdenhaag.nl/exhibitions/19_02_Hsieh_Teching (Accessed: 09 January 2024).

  3. Russeth, A. (2017) Documentation of One Year Performance 1980--1981 (Time Clock Piece)., ARTnews. Available at: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/slow-and-steady-tehching-hsieh-in-venice-8319/ (Accessed: 09 January 2024).

  4. goodvibetribee (2022) 5 December. Available at https://www.tiktok.com/@goodvibetribee/video/7096694377418001710 (Accessed: 9 January 2024).

  5. studyologyy (2023) 5 November. Available at https://www.tiktok.com/@studyologyy/video/7298054431617109280?q=studyology&t=1704811033218 (Accessed: 9 January 2024)

  6. bycandicedenise (2023) 24 October. Available at https://www.tiktok.com/@bycandicedenise/video/7293616968425295147 (Accessed: 9 January 2024)

  7. gentlemansthought02 (2023) 22 August. Available at https://www.tiktok.com/@gentlemansthought02/video/7270112544730352902 (Accessed: 9 January 2024)

  8. Walker, A.H. (2016) How Marina Abramovic's memoir does and doesn't illuminate the artist's work. Available at: https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-marina-ambramovic-memoir-20161021-snap-story.html (Accessed: 14 January 2024).

  9. Sundaram, M. (2013) cyclical vs linear time, Linear and Cyclical Time: Time's Arrow or Boomerang? Available at: https://endlessround.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/cyclical-and-linear-time/ (Accessed: 14 January 2024).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Articles

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  • Fevola, L. (2017) Performance artist Tehching Hsieh talks taking risks with Marina Abramovic, Interview Magazine. Available at: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/performance-artist-tehching-hsieh-talks-taking-risks-marina-abramovic (Accessed: 04 December 2023).

  • Gosling, E. (2017) The links between creativity and Depression, Eye on Design. Available at: https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/the-links-between-creativity-and-depression/#:~:text=The%20design%20industry's%20frequent%20long,more%20common%20than%20anywhere%20else. (Accessed: 04 December 2023).

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  • McCready, S. (2021) Hey designer, what's really causing your burnout?, Medium. Available at: https://uxdesign.cc/hey-designer-whats-really-causing-your-burnout-2030cfa0debe (Accessed: 16 November 2023).

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  • Roenneberg, T. et al. (2007) 'Epidemiology of the human circadian clock', Sleep Medicine Reviews, pp. 429--438. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1087079207000895 (Accessed: 03 December 2023).

  • Russeth, A. (2020) Art about waiting - and what it takes to endure, The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/t-magazine/Tehching-Hsieh-endurance-art.html (Accessed: 02 October 2023).

  • Tehching Hsieh 1986--1999. Thirteen Year plan (1986, printed 2000) - tehching hsieh: Objects: M+ (no date) Tehching Hsieh 1986--1999. Thirteen Year Plan (1986, printed 2000) - Tehching Hsieh | Objects | M+. Available at: https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/collection/objects/tehching-hsieh-19861999-thirteen-year-plan-2013467/ (Accessed: 02 October 2023).

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Books

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  • Burkeman, O. (2023) Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for mortals. Toronto, Ontario: Penguin, an imprint of Penguin Canada.

  • Cook, S. and Crary, J. (2019) 24/7: A wake-up call for our non-stopworld. London: Somerset House Trust.

  • Earle, A.M. (1971) Sun Dials and roses of Yesterday. Rutland, Vermont: Macmillan & co., ltd.

  • Fisher, G. and Franklin, B. (2010) 'Advice to a Young Tradesman', in American instructor. Gale Ecco, Print Editions.

  • Graeber, D. (2019) Bullshit jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.

  • Graeber, D. (2019) 'Chapter 3: Why Do Those in Bullshit Jobs Regularly Report Themselves Unhappy?', in Bullshit jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, pp. 85--91; pp. 133-143

  • Groom, A. (2013) Time, Documents of Contemporary Art. London: Whitechapel Gallery.

  • Horgan, A. (2021) 'Jobification nation: When play is serious business', in Lost in work: Escaping capitalism. London: Pluto Press, pp. 89--89; pp. 91-92; pp. 90-90.

  • Hyde, L. (2006) How the creative spirit transforms the world. Canongate.

  • Hsieh, T. and Heathfield, A. (2008) Out of now the lifeworks of tehching hsieh. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

  • Kubler, G. (1962) The shape of time: Remarks on the History of Things. New Haven, Conn, Connecticut: Yale University Press.

  • McGrath, A. and Jebb, M.A. (2015) Long history, Deep Time: Deepening histories of place. Acton, A.C.T: Australian National University Press.

  • Odell, J. (2023) Saving time: Discovering a life beyond the clock. London: Bodley Head.

  • Thomas, D. (1952) In country sleep and other poems. New York, New York: New Directions.

Videos

  • The Myth of Productivity (2023). YouTube. 25 November. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_UnFpUd3RI&t=75s (Accessed: 09 January 2024).

  • TIMELAPSE OF THE FUTURE: A Journey to the End of Time (4K) (2019). YouTube. 20 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4izuDMUQA (Accessed: 10 January 2024).

  • The Art of Slow Living (2023). YouTube. 11 December. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPxTYqrHkdM (Accessed: 10 January 2024).

Podcasts

Exhibitions

  • Marina Abramović (2023). [Exhibition]. Royal Academy of the Arts, London. 23 September 2023 - 1 January 2024.

Films

  • Chaplin, C. (1936) Modern Times [DVD]. United States: Charles Chaplin Productions, United Artists.

  • I'm Thinking Of Ending Things (2020). United States: Likely Story and Projective Testing Service.

  • Interstellar [film] (2014). United Kingdom and United States: Paramount Pictures Warner Bros. Pictures Legendary Pictures Syncopy Lynda Obst Productions.

  • Stiller, B. et al. (2013) The secret life of Walter Mitty [DVD]. United States: 20th Century Fox.

Thesis

  • Howard, L. (2015) About Time. thesis. Available at: https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/101463 (Accessed:14 January 2024).

  • Fathurrahman, D. (2020) Time and designer: Unveiling design practitioners' characteristics on time management, perfectionism, procrastination, and burnout. thesis. Google Scholar. Available at: http://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/101829 (Accessed: 04 December 2023).

Miscellaneous

  • Lennon, J. (1981). Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy). United States: Geffen Records.