TIME - FALL 2025 - Jeffrey Feddersen
04 Software Timekeeper
Quetsion: How is time depicted in pop culture? What’s your favorite sci-fi or historical fiction? What games treat time in unusual ways?My favorite film about time travel is About Time. The film focuses on the mundane and humane aspect of time traveling instead of the techinical and imaginary side of it. The protagonist is an ordinary guy that uses his ability to try to meet his girlfriend at the perfert time, to spend time with his father after he had passed away, and to fix his past mistakes in life. At the end of the movie, he would live his days twice, not to fix any mistakes but just to relive and appreciate the moment without the initial stress. Eventually, he stopped using time travel as he was able to live his life like he was living it the second time. The movie resonated with me and taught me how to live in the moment while embracing my anxiety and stress.
In video game “Life is Strange”, the core mechanic is around the protagonist’s ability to reweind time. It speaks to the theme of cause and effect as well as the butterfly effect. In the gameplay, certain events indicates that the action will have consequences, meaning it has influenced a turn of events in the future and the protagonist would be able to go back to this point to change it. The protagonist will use this ability to save the town, while certain sacriface will also be made.
Create code that changes over time at at least two different rates
For this week’s project, I was inspired by Félix González-Torres‘ art piece "Untitled" (Perfect Lovers).
In this piece, two identical wall clocks are hung side-by-side, touching each other. The clocks are initially set to the same time but may fall out of sync over the course of an exhibition. This art work was said to represent him and his lover who was diagnosed with AIDS.
In one of González-Torres‘ letters to his partner with a sketch of this art piece, he wrote:
Dont be afraid of the clocks, they are our time, the time has been so generous to us. We imprinted time with the sweet taste of victory. We conquered fate by meeting at a certain TIME in a certain space. We are a product of the time, therefore we give back credit were it is due: time.
We are synchronized, now and forever.
I love you.
I found this piece to be quite touching, and wanted to create an interative version with TouchDesigner.
I set the clocks to start at the same time, as one hand enters the frame, the clock slows down, once it leaves the frame, the clock returns to its normal speed. As the left and right hand enters and leaves at different times, the clocks are off-set and may be in sync again at a random point.