Many months ago, Matthias J Barker wrote to us with a prompt….
We hand’t considered it, so we let that thought simmer in our heads for a bit. What would a watch version of Superlocal do differently from the clock version? A few messy sketches and a few months later, we got an opportunity to explore this idea further with the generous help of Apossible. With their funding, we ran a 2 week at-home residency to explore this idea.
We sketched, discussed and brainstormed. Many conversations later, we landed on this…
In this moment in history and in our global industrialized world, time is a form of power and currency. We spend time, we take time, waste time, kill time, buy time, find time, invest time, share time, steal moments, etc.
“In mature capitalist society all time must be consumed, marketed, put to use; it is offensive for the labour force merely to ‘pass the time.’” -E.P. Thompson
“Time, as we have known it in the West, is not merely a neutral measure but an instrument of power, a tool for the domination of one group by another.” -Johannes Fabian
We are not as busy as we think or say we are. We feel busy, but we are not busy all the time. We feel busy because we feel the pressure of time through our timekeeping devices. Time feels constrained and scarce when we have devices constantly counting down and reminding us of our next obligation.
The reality is we can’t ignore our clocks. They’re useful and beautiful. Timekeeping is this universal language that we all agreed to use to coordinate life. But there are slivers, maybe even chunks of time in our day when we can ignore the clock. We’ve become accustomed to spending these special periods scrolling on screens and catching up with messages.