YOUR CLOCK， YOUR LIFE
PROJECT STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Nowadays, people tend to be trapped in their never-ending schedule and rushing against time. So, it’s significant and necessary for us to slow down for a while and think about how time flow and how our timeline aligns and goes across with each other. The idea came from my previous research on “Crows are Chased, and the Chasing Crows are Destined to be Chased as well, Transcending Space”.（https://borderless.teamlab.art/shanghai/ew/crows_transcending_space_shanghai/）The idea in this project that there will never be a same image anytime and anywhere really inspired me a lot.
I started thinking of making a project that can inspire users to establish the idea of grasping each and every moment of life and begin to think of what role time really plays in our life and relationship. We are going to provide a twisted clock for the users to draw on and the strokes will retrace at regular intervals and eventually disappear. By providing an immersion period merely for experiencing time flow, users may get a chance of escape from the rush and develop a new perspective on time.
PROJECT PLAN
To make this idea come true, Cathy and I broke the whole process into several steps.
The first thing to do is to figure out how to track the movement of the users, we are planning to use 5 separate LEDs for each fingers. We will use a web camera to position each finger and upload the x-y position to processing. （By Nov.23）. The second thing is to figure out the use of projector to see the range of area it can project and design the model of the clock according to it (By Nov.24 ). Next, the third thing is to complete the fabrication of the physical clock and figure out the range of area the web camera can capture(By Nov.26). The forth step is to figure out how to capture and store the image regularly, and make them flash and rotate at the end.(Nov.30) The next step was to use a distance sensor and connect Arduino with Processing, making the stroke of the pen vary according to the distance(Dec.2).The last step before user testing is to put music into the whole process to make the experience more immersive(Dec.3). And also making improvements according to the feedback we got through the user testing.
CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
When going through the mid-term period, I felt myself rushing between schedules and sometimes overwhelmed. However, after slowing down and emptying my mind for a while, things seems to bright up and I would be more motivated. Thinking of this, we also found that a lot of people share the same experience. As a result, we thought of making a device that can remind people with the value of time and make them experience the flow and passage of time through an interactive experience. We intended to make a project that aligns with the criteria of “Dynamic-Interactive (Varying)”, which also aligns with my definition of “interaction”: highly customized and encouraging exploration.