Temporal design: looking at time as social coordination

Abstract

Designers are increasingly paying attention to problematic experiences of time. From a critique of acceleration to an urge to frame present actions within more extended futures, designers have been analysing how different temporal perceptions may influence practices and how they can be influenced by design. In this paper, we argue that in order to challenge problematic relationships to time, designers should consider time in radically different terms. Instead of regarding time largely in terms of pace and direction, they should start considering the complexity of aspects that sustain the coordination of particular groups. We present this approach through the concept of Temporal Design, which endeavours to reveal actors, practices and forces that determine social coordination within specific contexts. By surfacing this complexity, temporal design would allow it to be discussed, possibly demystifying problematic experiences and enabling more inclusive ways of understanding time.

Seizure aesthetics: Temporal regimes and medical technology in epilepsy diagnosis

“…I conclude by discussing how the aperture of clinical diagnosis could be broadened to incorporate lived experience. In line with recent calls for a recuperative imaginary of clock time (Bastian, 2018; Pschetz et al., 2016), I propose the figure of the heartbeat as a situated and co-produced alternative to the standardized and invariant clock. Ultimately, by critically investigating the power of the EEG as a temporal regime, I argue that the aesthetics of medical technology are fundamental to clinical care and open up new directions for research at the intersection of critical time studies and disability studies.…”

“…She proposes a “critical horology” that underscores the deeply political nature of clocks while insisting on their potential for redesign (Bastian, 2018). A temporal design framework, Bastian and colleagues argue, would instead focus on challenging dominant narratives of time and highlighting alternative networks of temporalities that “reveal actors, practices and forces that determine social coordination within specific contexts” (Pschetz et al., 2016). This paper responds to these calls, using an ethnographic study of epileptic seizure diagnosis to show that the use of clock time in combination with a multiplicity of contingent temporalities, actors, and forces, works to assign problematic aesthetics to brain activity.…”

On the Design of Time

“…These principles can be viewed as the process of purposeful navigation in Minkowskian space-time (see Moray & Hancock, 2009). It is gratifying to know that some of the present postulations (see Hancock, 2004; also see Hildebrandt, Loer, & Harrison, 2004) have now begun to feature in interesting and intriguing contemporary developments (see Pschetz, Macdonald, Speed, & Bastian, 2015). The challenge remaining is whether we can take the next step and “design” the supposedly basic dimension of duration itself.…”

Expanding Modes of Reflection in Design Futuring

“…This representation of the future, and its widespread use in design futuring, illustrates how cultural and linguistic conventions can embed themselves even in those discourses that attempt to be critical, pluralistic and self-reflexive. Thus, design futuring researchers need to challenge how dominant representations of temporality figure into our understanding and design of futures [78].…”