TY - CONF

T1 - Towards a temporal commons

T2 - Alfred Deakin Institute thematic research stream

AU - Griffiths, Rupert

PY - 2021/5/4

Y1 - 2021/5/4

N2 - As our planet makes a turbulent transition from the Holocene to what has been termed the Anthropocene, it becomes increasingly clear that there is a mismatch between the social/economic cycles associated with humanity and those of environmental, evolutionary, and geological change. However, the standardised measures of time, such as Coordinated Universal Time, which we use to coordinate everything from daily life to transport, energy production, and global trade, build anthropocentrism into our world view at many levels.How then might we introduce into daily life ways of thinking time from a more-than-human perspective? This paper considers this question through a work of speculative design developed by the author, conceived as a convergence of fieldwork, artwork, and timepiece. As light from the sun is a biological cue that entrains the circadian rhythms of most life on earth, this timepiece takes the luminosity and colour of the sky as its basis for timekeeping. By being attentive to the diurnal changes in illumination, the timepiece aims to articulate a more-than-human temporal commons, while also indicating the presence of anthropogenic light at night, which can disrupt both human and non-human biologies and behaviours.

AB - As our planet makes a turbulent transition from the Holocene to what has been termed the Anthropocene, it becomes increasingly clear that there is a mismatch between the social/economic cycles associated with humanity and those of environmental, evolutionary, and geological change. However, the standardised measures of time, such as Coordinated Universal Time, which we use to coordinate everything from daily life to transport, energy production, and global trade, build anthropocentrism into our world view at many levels.How then might we introduce into daily life ways of thinking time from a more-than-human perspective? This paper considers this question through a work of speculative design developed by the author, conceived as a convergence of fieldwork, artwork, and timepiece. As light from the sun is a biological cue that entrains the circadian rhythms of most life on earth, this timepiece takes the luminosity and colour of the sky as its basis for timekeeping. By being attentive to the diurnal changes in illumination, the timepiece aims to articulate a more-than-human temporal commons, while also indicating the presence of anthropogenic light at night, which can disrupt both human and non-human biologies and behaviours.

M3 - Speech

Y2 - 4 May 2021 through 4 May 2021

ER -