Andrea
Pradella
How are we measuring time? Why are we doing that?
The clock is a mechanical instrument far from the human natural perception. Is it possible to think about a machine that forces us to “perceive” time and not to “count” it? Is it possible to shift from precision to subjectivity?
This is what this project proposes to show.
After several attempts to find a new unit for measuring time, I chose the falling of a dropped ball.
Chosen, precisely, because if you do not apply any force on a sphere, it still in its perfect balance without falling. In this way the measurement of time is voluntary, the result of a decision: your action. The time out of this interval becomes therefore, no longer countable but simply perceptible.
The unit that we created will not be uniform but will change in each ball’s fall, making the length of the interval unpredictable. At this point our decision-making power stops: I can decide to drop the object but once it falls, I can no longer decide to stop it without compromising the measurement.
Having a changing unit of measure means that time cannot be comparable anymore. Time becomes not measurable even into the measurement, forcing us to perceive it and not count it.