Tech

Two friends tried to create a new time zone — and they sort of succeeded

Melia Robinson

2015-10-26T21:19:00Z

taeyoon choi, e roon kang, personal time

Taeyoon Choi and E. Roon Kang have a plan to disrupt time. More specifically, they want to ditch standard time in favor of a made-up alternative called "elsewhen." This imaginary time zone would measure each passing minute not by the rotation of the earth but by a person's perception of how much time has gone by.

The idea first struck the duo during a video-chat with clients living on the other side of the world. In this virtual hangout, they existed in a unique timespace they created and shared only momentarily.

"It's almost like we were floating someplace else, between Seoul and New York, and not completely belonging to either," Kang, a TED Fellow, said on stage at one of the organization's retreats, where he recounted their journey.

Over the summer, Choi and Kang decided to make "elsewhen" a reality through a workshop they titled In Search of Personal Time. Here's how their time-traveling adventure played out.

First, Choi and Kang needed to create a clock that would reflect an individual's personal perception of time, rather than counting 86,400 seconds in a day.

This is the personal timekeeper. It's a numeric display powered by the microcomputer Raspberry Pi and encased in balsa wood, with a multipurpose button on top.

One afternoon at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, they handed out the timekeepers to a dozen study participants.

They asked the group to close their eyes and press and hold the timekeeper's button for however long they thought was a minute — which wound up being anywhere from 30 and 90 seconds.

From that point on, everyone’s clock advanced at different speeds depending on their perception of a minute.

Choi and Kang set the group loose in the museum, asking that they return to the starting point by 3:30 in the afternoon.

A website created by the duo displayed each person's personal time, delivered via the timekeeper's modem ...

... along with a timeline of moments that were of significance to the participant, which he or she marked by pushing the timekeeper's button.

As they wandered, participants noted feeling particularly mindful about the passing of time.

"My clock was really fast. Super, super fast," one participant said. "So I decided to try to do as many things as I could in order to try to see something."

"The thing that is interesting about having a device that helps you measure moments," another participant added, "is that as soon as I pressed the button it made me more attentive to what I was experiencing and observing in that moment."

Later, the group reunited in a lab space — arriving at various intervals due to their mismatched clocks — where Choi and Kang led a roundtable discussion.

They agreed that a consensus time is necessary to function in today's world. But that doesn't mean you need to be synchronous with everyone all the time.

Owning a sense of time allowed them to actually live in the moment.

Maybe one day, they hypothesized, you could selectively synchronize your personal time with a small number of people, like your friends, family, and coworkers.

"This idea of not conforming to the standardized time can feel a little far fetched," Kang says, "but it’s a step toward recognizing and respecting the vastly different and beautiful ways we all navigate this complicated world."