Time is ticking

Delany Boutkan is a conceptual designer, whose main goal is to break through habits and expectations, encouraging people to think about and rediscover their daily surroundings and almost mindless activities. Why objects are they way the are is a constant question in her work.

Delany graduated in June 2014 from Willem De Kooning in Rotterdam, and her graduation project is the exploration of the meaning of time in our world today. She makes the audience experience time in a new, different way, confronting them with how fleeting the notion of time has become. Due to rapidly evolving technology, numeral time has become increasingly important. People are fixated on the ticking of the clock. The objects she designed take the audience back to the now, back to the more intuitive approach of time where the world can be experienced without any pressure, without constantly thinking about what will happen next and without hurry.

Based on research – she asked people how they felt about the passing of time, how they felt time was passing by and when they felt most conscious of time – she distilled several objects that contemplate our vision on time. One example is Cadence. Felt earplugs refer to relaxation and taking a break. By using earplugs, you’re able to hear your own heartbeat and that rhythm or cadence can bring you to a state of relaxation. Same goes for listing to the ‘sound of the sea’ in porcelain shells, which really is just the remaining sound of filtered background noise.
Another object is Turn, a book about the actions you do while reading. Reading is an activity that lets people stand still for a while and that plays with the notion of time constantly. Turn questions how books and their designs contribute to our idea of the passing of time.