Further thoughts on social furniture

Social Furniture

Last week I took part in a workshop centered around ideas of social furniture.  The aim was as follows:
To design a social furniture that creates a sense of community around it, not just physically but
mentally through a process of creation.

There was a very interesting set of participants including product designers, stylists and artists. 

 This piece started out with a bunch of us wearing one sleeve of a shirt, with our other sleeve tied to another participants empty sleeve.  It ended up being a large ping pong bat, with an orange being bounced from shirt to shirt.

This was an experiment in tension and coordination.  A piece of blue plastic canvas was pegged around 4 participants and created a series of pockets for containing and carrying goods.  It also provided a surprising amount of strength - the participants found they could all lean back simultaneously and it would hold their weights.

For lunch we ate and talked in a Food Communication Lab hosted by Natasha Rosling.

The afternoon ended up with a discussion of ideas that had come from the mornings experiments, some of which are documented below.

Clockless Experiment

I am about to embark on an experiment on how time affects me and my making, and it's influence on my self and my body.

I often feel that the time-keeps which surround me have a stronger hold on me than I would like.  I always set an alarm although I wake before it most days, I rush and worry about what time it is, am aware of the clock even when I cannot see one.  I want to see what my life would be like if I stripped conscious time from it.

I intend to spend one week (Monday to Friday) with time keeping implements and one week (monday to Friday) without. I will record my feelings and experiences in a journal fashion daily, and also against a series of more tangible criteria such as work achieved etc.

During the with-time week I will keep a note of when I check the clock, the actions I use clocks for (catching trains etc, alarms), how I use it in regard to my making and my general living.

During the time-less week I will remove as far as possible any connection with time keeping devices (clocks, watches etc) and turn of the clock functions on my phone and computer etc. I will not be using an alarm clock or anything similar.  I will rise when I wake, eat when hungry, work as feels natural etc.

I will be tweeting about my experiences, using the hashtag #clockless and blogging about my experiences here, tagged clockless.

I will measure somewhat tangible things like work done, emotions etc to try to see what difference the week I spend without time has to a normal week.  I will also try to discover as much as possible about other peoples time experiences and experiments, so if you know of anything please let me know.

Caveats:
I am doing this Monday to Friday as I often have markets stalls at the weekends and must be there at certain times (a useful side of clocks?)
My partner will have to set his alarm to make sure he gets up for work.  However I usually wake before him (and his alarm) so I am not concerned about this disturbing things.

With-time week:  6th-10th June

Clockless week: 13th-17th June

Slow Down London Slow Club

I have started blogging for Slow London as an online only member of their Slow Club.  I am really excited about being a part of this as Slow living and Slow Design are an important part of my creative practice and of my thought process.

  My first weekly instructions were to take note of my pace and attempt to take a slow walk at some point when I would usually be rushing.  My first post is just up on their site now, here, and my second weeks instructions are to do with technology... I will be writing about that later in the week.

See the Slow Down London site here.