[Music]
if you’re like most people the first
thought in your mind every single waking
day is what time is it am i late and you
reach for your smart phone to check the
time our lives today move so fast from
instant meals to fast-track degrees to
speed-dating maybe we can squeeze in a
seven-minute workout or a 5-minute
meditation the pace of American life is
massively accelerating and we feel this
pressure to do it all to have it all
we’re always on the clock minutes and
seconds ticking by keeping track of our
experience everything in our lives is
time-stamped work is costed by hours
even child births are scheduled clock
time as we know it today developed
because of modern technologies and it’s
come to rule our lives
these modern lives where we feel
stressed overwhelmed and perpetually
behind like we’re always out of time we
all know this feeling it’s no wonder
that the term digital detox was recently
introduced to the Oxford American
Dictionary digital detox is a period
during which a person refrains from
using smartphones and computers it’s
regarded as an opportunity to reduce
stress and focus on social interaction
in the physical world the idea is simple
completely disconnect and reset and it’s
a great idea but I don’t think this is a
realistic approach to dealing with the
stress of clock time in our day to day
lives this seems like a uniquely adult
problem right as children we aren’t
burdened by a constant worry of lateness
I grew up here in Colorado and one of my
favorite things about Colorado is the
sunshine and the vastness of the sky 300
days of Sun
is a sort of unofficial slogan it was
actually coined by a railroad company in
the 1870s with the intention of
attracting people from the east to come
out to the west Colorado doesn’t quite
maintain 300 days of sunshine but the
experience of living here does feel that
way and I don’t know about you all but
for me living in this bright sunny place
makes me really happy as a child I spent
endless hours outside in the sunshine
exploring all the ways that time is
expressed in nature I noticed how
quickly the snow would melt after a
spring storm a sign that the earth was
warming and summer was on the way and my
dad taught me to identify constellations
in the night sky I learned to recognize
a difference in the stars between the
spring and the fall as a child growing
up I was deeply absorbed in nature’s
time I let days pass without counting
hours o’clock time didn’t exist but as
adults we learned to live in the world
of clocks in 2013 I moved to New York
City and I felt this to an extreme I
felt like there was always more to be
done or somewhere else to be like I
never quite had enough time living in
the city I discovered a new way of life
it was gritty diverse creative and
authentic but for all the ways New York
was a thrilling and incredible place to
live for me it was also really hard
every day I spent more than an hour
underground commuting on the subway I
exercised in a gym without windows and
socializing meant spending time with my
friends late at night in dark bars I
would lose track of time being indoors
all day working on my computer existing
in this climate-controlled
noise-canceling concrete construct the
months and years blurred together as I
was completely disconnected from every
aspect of the natural world I never knew
what time the Sun would rise and set but
it didn’t seem
matter in the speed and hustle of cities
we need clocks because there’s no other
way to tell the time nature is confined
to planter boxes and it’s impossible to
see the Stars as a technologist I
thought I might be able to build a
project that might help me solve this
feeling of darkness and disconnect so I
started building custom electronics to
measure light and I started testing
light tracking devices that were already
on the market I had this idea that if I
could measure and quantify the natural
light I was exposed to every day I might
be able to find some kind of solution to
this feeling of darkness and overwhelm I
tried really hard to find to find value
in this quantified approach but really
quickly realize that the data I was
collecting wasn’t teaching me anything
if I wasn’t getting enough sunlight like
when I was commuting underground I
didn’t need a smart device to tell me
about it the artist in me was more
concerned with how it felt to live in
this darkness and I realized that my
goal for this project wasn’t about
solving a problem it was an exploration
into the human experience of daylight
how then could I use modern technology
to reconnect me with the natural rhythms
and cycles of the earth in merging these
interests as both a technologist and an
artist I decided to create a daylight
clock that gives a dynamic expression of
time based on the length of daylight for
a particular location here’s how it
works
so this clock has a single hand that
rotates 360 degrees over the course of
daylight hours when the Sun is down the
hand rests in the 12 o’clock position
without moving and in the morning when
the Sun rises the hand starts rotating
around the clock face eventually the
hand will return back to that 12 o’clock
position in the evening when the Sun
sets because the Sun rises and sets at a
different time every single day of the
year
the hand of my clock moves at a
different speed everyday it rotates
faster in the winter and slower in the
summer at night the hand doesn’t move at
all
the analog simplicity of the clock face
is contrasted by the complexity of this
system behind the scenes on the back of
the clock there is a microcontroller
which is a simple computer and that
connects wirelessly to a server the
server then pulls sunrise and sunset
data based on the latitude and longitude
of the device the microcontroller will
then calculate the speed at which to
rotate the hand and the clock is smart
it knows where it is so if it’s moved to
a new location it can easily update
itself there were many iterations in
building this project and although a lot
of my focus went into the hardware and
software aspects of the piece the
aesthetic design was one of the most fun
parts for me inspired by the Sun I chose
to use brass as the material for this
clock because of the warm glow that it
cast a sort of subtle reminder of
daylight the simplicity of the single
hand draws inspiration from a sundial
this physical clock is an elegant design
object but there’s only one of them and
it can only really live in one place it
was also important to me to create a
version of this timepiece that I could
share with others so I built a Google
Chrome extension with the same clock
interface every time I open a new tab in
my browser this daylight clock is the
first thing that appears like the
physical clock it pulls
location-specific sunrise and sunset
times meaning it will automatically
adjust itself anywhere I am in the world
whenever I have my computer with me I
also have this clock I started this
project more than two years ago as a way
to better understand my own experience
of living in a big city and feeling
profoundly disconnected from daylight
I’ve gone through many transitions since
starting this project but this daylight
clock has continued to offer
a daily subtle reminder to slow down and
connect to the moment and the place that
I’m in living with this clock I’ve
become deeply aware of how my body
responds to the changing seasons how in
the spring as the days get longer I have
this burst of energy and the opposite
happens in the fall so rather than
living with the same patterns and pace
every single day of the year my life has
developed a flexibility and fluidity
that honors these greater cycles I’m a
part of technology adds so much to our
lives but it also really complicates our
lives and in the course of human history
this change has happened really fast
most of us don’t think twice before
adopting a new piece of technology we
don’t consider how it will impact our
relationships our communication our
bodies and today we need technology to
solve the problems created by technology
I’m not saying that cities are bad or
clock time should be rejected incredible
progress has been made possible because
of these things but for technologists
and designers there’s an opportunity to
build objects and tools that help us
slow down and celebrate the human
experience in a more authentic way as
much as we’ve been conditioned to
believe that time is a linear thing the
experience of time is not linear at all
we think of a day as 24 hours but this
measure doesn’t reflect how we actually
live our lives life exists as meaningful
moments and we feel time through shared
interactions emotional connections and
transcendent moments the experience of
time is a uniquely personal thing and
it’s something that could never be bound
to a singular linear idea for me
building this daylight clock was just
one way of investing in my own
subjective experience of time and for
most of us in
ordered to live a modern life we have to
embrace clock time but that doesn’t mean
we should forget all of the elegant
expressions of time in nature nature was
once the biggest public clock we’ve just
stopped paying attention time is an
infinite and beautiful thing and rather
than feeling a desire to overcome it let
us expand our understanding of time and
let that dictate how we spend our
moments on earth thank you
[Applause]
if you’re like most people the first
thought in your mind every single waking
day is what time is it am i late and you
reach for your smart phone to check the
time our lives today move so fast from
instant meals to fast-track degrees to
speed-dating maybe we can squeeze in a
seven-minute workout or a 5-minute
meditation the pace of American life is
massively accelerating and we feel this
pressure to do it all to have it all
we’re always on the clock minutes and
seconds ticking by keeping track of our
experience everything in our lives is
time-stamped work is costed by hours
even child births are scheduled clock
time as we know it today developed
because of modern technologies and it’s
come to rule our lives
these modern lives where we feel
stressed overwhelmed and perpetually
behind like we’re always out of time we
all know this feeling it’s no wonder
that the term digital detox was recently
introduced to the Oxford American
Dictionary digital detox is a period
during which a person refrains from
using smartphones and computers it’s
regarded as an opportunity to reduce
stress and focus on social interaction
in the physical world the idea is simple
completely disconnect and reset and it’s
a great idea but I don’t think this is a
realistic approach to dealing with the
stress of clock time in our day to day
lives this seems like a uniquely adult
problem right as children we aren’t
burdened by a constant worry of lateness
I grew up here in Colorado and one of my
favorite things about Colorado is the
sunshine and the vastness of the sky 300
days of Sun
is a sort of unofficial slogan it was
actually coined by a railroad company in
the 1870s with the intention of
attracting people from the east to come
out to the west Colorado doesn’t quite
maintain 300 days of sunshine but the
experience of living here does feel that
way and I don’t know about you all but
for me living in this bright sunny place
makes me really happy as a child I spent
endless hours outside in the sunshine
exploring all the ways that time is
expressed in nature I noticed how
quickly the snow would melt after a
spring storm a sign that the earth was
warming and summer was on the way and my
dad taught me to identify constellations
in the night sky I learned to recognize
a difference in the stars between the
spring and the fall as a child growing
up I was deeply absorbed in nature’s
time I let days pass without counting
hours o’clock time didn’t exist but as
adults we learned to live in the world
of clocks in 2013 I moved to New York
City and I felt this to an extreme I
felt like there was always more to be
done or somewhere else to be like I
never quite had enough time living in
the city I discovered a new way of life
it was gritty diverse creative and
authentic but for all the ways New York
was a thrilling and incredible place to
live for me it was also really hard
every day I spent more than an hour
underground commuting on the subway I
exercised in a gym without windows and
socializing meant spending time with my
friends late at night in dark bars I
would lose track of time being indoors
all day working on my computer existing
in this climate-controlled
noise-canceling concrete construct the
months and years blurred together as I
was completely disconnected from every
aspect of the natural world I never knew
what time the Sun would rise and set but
it didn’t seem
matter in the speed and hustle of cities
we need clocks because there’s no other
way to tell the time nature is confined
to planter boxes and it’s impossible to
see the Stars as a technologist I
thought I might be able to build a
project that might help me solve this
feeling of darkness and disconnect so I
started building custom electronics to
measure light and I started testing
light tracking devices that were already
on the market I had this idea that if I
could measure and quantify the natural
light I was exposed to every day I might
be able to find some kind of solution to
this feeling of darkness and overwhelm I
tried really hard to find to find value
in this quantified approach but really
quickly realize that the data I was
collecting wasn’t teaching me anything
if I wasn’t getting enough sunlight like
when I was commuting underground I
didn’t need a smart device to tell me
about it the artist in me was more
concerned with how it felt to live in
this darkness and I realized that my
goal for this project wasn’t about
solving a problem it was an exploration
into the human experience of daylight
how then could I use modern technology
to reconnect me with the natural rhythms
and cycles of the earth in merging these
interests as both a technologist and an
artist I decided to create a daylight
clock that gives a dynamic expression of
time based on the length of daylight for
a particular location here’s how it
works
so this clock has a single hand that
rotates 360 degrees over the course of
daylight hours when the Sun is down the
hand rests in the 12 o’clock position
without moving and in the morning when
the Sun rises the hand starts rotating
around the clock face eventually the
hand will return back to that 12 o’clock
position in the evening when the Sun
sets because the Sun rises and sets at a
different time every single day of the
year
the hand of my clock moves at a
different speed everyday it rotates
faster in the winter and slower in the
summer at night the hand doesn’t move at
all
the analog simplicity of the clock face
is contrasted by the complexity of this
system behind the scenes on the back of
the clock there is a microcontroller
which is a simple computer and that
connects wirelessly to a server the
server then pulls sunrise and sunset
data based on the latitude and longitude
of the device the microcontroller will
then calculate the speed at which to
rotate the hand and the clock is smart
it knows where it is so if it’s moved to
a new location it can easily update
itself there were many iterations in
building this project and although a lot
of my focus went into the hardware and
software aspects of the piece the
aesthetic design was one of the most fun
parts for me inspired by the Sun I chose
to use brass as the material for this
clock because of the warm glow that it
cast a sort of subtle reminder of
daylight the simplicity of the single
hand draws inspiration from a sundial
this physical clock is an elegant design
object but there’s only one of them and
it can only really live in one place it
was also important to me to create a
version of this timepiece that I could
share with others so I built a Google
Chrome extension with the same clock
interface every time I open a new tab in
my browser this daylight clock is the
first thing that appears like the
physical clock it pulls
location-specific sunrise and sunset
times meaning it will automatically
adjust itself anywhere I am in the world
whenever I have my computer with me I
also have this clock I started this
project more than two years ago as a way
to better understand my own experience
of living in a big city and feeling
profoundly disconnected from daylight
I’ve gone through many transitions since
starting this project but this daylight
clock has continued to offer
a daily subtle reminder to slow down and
connect to the moment and the place that
I’m in living with this clock I’ve
become deeply aware of how my body
responds to the changing seasons how in
the spring as the days get longer I have
this burst of energy and the opposite
happens in the fall so rather than
living with the same patterns and pace
every single day of the year my life has
developed a flexibility and fluidity
that honors these greater cycles I’m a
part of technology adds so much to our
lives but it also really complicates our
lives and in the course of human history
this change has happened really fast
most of us don’t think twice before
adopting a new piece of technology we
don’t consider how it will impact our
relationships our communication our
bodies and today we need technology to
solve the problems created by technology
I’m not saying that cities are bad or
clock time should be rejected incredible
progress has been made possible because
of these things but for technologists
and designers there’s an opportunity to
build objects and tools that help us
slow down and celebrate the human
experience in a more authentic way as
much as we’ve been conditioned to
believe that time is a linear thing the
experience of time is not linear at all
we think of a day as 24 hours but this
measure doesn’t reflect how we actually
live our lives life exists as meaningful
moments and we feel time through shared
interactions emotional connections and
transcendent moments the experience of
time is a uniquely personal thing and
it’s something that could never be bound
to a singular linear idea for me
building this daylight clock was just
one way of investing in my own
subjective experience of time and for
most of us in
ordered to live a modern life we have to
embrace clock time but that doesn’t mean
we should forget all of the elegant
expressions of time in nature nature was
once the biggest public clock we’ve just
stopped paying attention time is an
infinite and beautiful thing and rather
than feeling a desire to overcome it let
us expand our understanding of time and
let that dictate how we spend our
moments on earth thank you
[Applause]
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