User:Kiara/Special Issue 27
Directed by Imane B. K. & Martino Morandi (Constant) General page: https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/See_you_many_times!
Introduction
An extended moment where we will see time from different angles and in different technological manifestations
The introduction day pad
Draw yourself as a clock
My clock is sitting on an armchair, resting with a warm cup of tea and trying to escape it own thoughts. Entangled between the rush of life, overthinking and attention deficit leading to a lot of zoning out and daydreaming, it doesn't know when is the right time for either.
It indicates lot of different times, as it is never right on time.
The purple time is 13:13 (a mirror hour I often get)
The red time is 22:22 (another mirror hour I often get)
The black time is the one that passes "normally", but it is itself a bit confused, hence its zig-zag shape.
Readings
- Executing Micro-Temporality – A collective reading
- In-depth: Time Consciousness and Discipline in the Industrial Revolution
Prototyping Classes
Interview with a tool
06-05-2025
with Manetta
Notes about calendar
cultural: In what culture(s) did this tool emerge within? Academic? Industry? Community? Artistic? And what cultural practices did emerge around this tool?
- when you search the web for "calendar" the first page is only filled with online calendar platforms. No definition/wiki entry
- The term *calendar* is taken from *kalendae*, the term for the first day of the month in the Roman calendar, related to the verb *calare* 'to call out', referring to the "calling" of the new moon when it was first seen. Latin *calendarium* meant 'account book, register' (as accounts were settled and debts were collected on the calends of each month)
- first calendar in ancient near east: bronze age egyptian + sumerian, mostly based on babylonian calendar
- babylonian calendar: a lunisolar calendar used in mesopotamia from around -2000 to -294
- lunisolar: combines monthly moon cycles with solar year
- first calendar in orient: vedic indian calendar (linked to rituals)
- during classical greece, lots of calendars that then gave rise to the ancient roman calendar and hindu calendars - but also chinese, hebrew and gregorian calendars
- hellenic calendars: 12 lunar months
- ancient roman calendar: 12 lunar months, starting and ending with the new moon + additional days to match the seasons
- hindu calendars (panchanga): new year starts in spring. to adjsut the missmatch between lunar months and solar days, they add a full month every 32 or 33 month so that festivals and rituals fall in the righ season. still used today for festival dates. The Hindu calendar is also important to the practice of Hindu astrology and zodiac system.
- Caesar reformed the roman calendar in 46BC that introduced the leap day every four year to correct the missmatch between moon and sun, still contained errors that were mostly corrected by the gregorian calendar in 1582
The World Calendar
a proposal to reform the gregorian calendar so that every year is exactly the same = perennial calendar.
2 leap days that are not weekdays but full holidays to align and make up for the difference in solar time, and so that every year can follow the same pattern
all the benefits listed for this calendar are tied to economy and education. Very capitalistic
THIS is a real benefit:
"Because the World Calendar is perpetual, there is no need to churn out copies of it every year."
criticism is mainly from religions about the intercalary days that are out of the week and disrupt the 7-day cycle
The International Fixed Calendar
a proposal to reform the gregorian calendar so that every year is exactly the same = perennial calendar.
13 months of 28 days + one extra day at the end of the year - the 13th month is inserted between june and july and name sol
one leap day between june 28 and sol 1, happens when the year number is divisible by four but not when it is divisible by 100
The Hanke-Henry calendar
a proposal to reform the gregorian calendar so that every year is exactly the same = perennial calendar.
reducing years to 364 days and adding a week every 5 or 6 years, which prevents the weekday drift
Different types of calendars
- lunar - such as the islamic calendar
- solar - such as the persian calendar
- first developped in ancient egypt
- lunisolar - such as traditional chinese, hindu and hebrew calendars
Very commonly a calendar includes more than one type of cycle or has both cyclic and non-cyclic elements.
Interview
- Hello calendar. your current shape has been determined by years and years of evolution and civilizations. what was your first shape and when was it born?
Bronze Age with the development of writing in ancient near east -8042: Kojoda, a calendar created by the Yoruba people in west africa ~ -9000/-10000: Wurdi Youang, a stone arrangement in Australia -- egg shaped, 50m diameter -8000: Warren Field, the oldest lunisolar calendar -- aligned stones in a straight-ish line
- Does it make sense to flatten and align years through a perennial calendar? why?
it helps perceiving time maybe, and planning? but ultimately it is also a bit sad, every month might end up feeling the same, it might feel quite dull on an emotional level. Also, menstruation cycles tend to align with the moon cycles, and fixing a calendar in such a way could get a bit disturbing. Also, cultures and people calculate time differently, hence the various types of calendars used around the world. Why do we need to always make things 'international'? It is a fake way to erase differences, an illusion, and we don't need that, we need to embrace the differences rooted in our cultures and celebrate them.
- When looking your name up in a search engine we don't get offered a definition or your wiki page, only calendar tools. what does it say about the world's perception of calendars?
Have you been transformed into a merely capitalistic performance-evaluation tool? calendars were first conceived as time-keeping tools, slowly they evolved into time-managing ones. And management is now revolving around labour and employment. In a way calendars are nowadays a tool for proficiency and profit. If it doesn't fit your timetable, it means you're not organized and therefore unfit to this society.
- You are based on nature cycles -the moon, the sun, the seasons- but you are displayed into a grid. Is that yet another sign that human kind feels safer when putting things in boxes?
- How have you been reshaped and transformed in pop culture works?
Keywords
tracking -- predicting -- timekeeping -- ritual --
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_calendars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_calendars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_calendars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wurdi_Youang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Field