By Helga Schmid
Edited by Stephanie Barclay

The expression “time crisis” sets a dystopian tone in contemporary debates on the nature of our relationship with time. (1) During the era of the Industrial Revolution, the discrepancy between “clock time” and the human body clock was described by Lewis Mumford in his seminal book Technics and Civilization (1934):

The clock, moreover, is a piece of power-machinery whose “product” is seconds and minutes: by its essential nature it dissociated time from human events . . . In terms of the human organism itself, mechanical time is even more foreign: while human life has regularities of its own, the beat of the pulse, the breathing of the lungs, these change from hour to hour with mood and action, and in the longer span of days, time is measured not by the calendar but the events that occupy it.(2)

From the vantage point of the present, mechanical time seems slow compared to the high-speed age we currently inhabit. Cultural critic Jonathan Crary argues in 24/7: Late Capitalism and the End of Sleep that we have created a nonstop society wherein the human body is not capable of keeping up with late capitalism’s speed and endurance. (3) In today’s “achievement society,” (4) sleep disrupts our productivity and activity around the clock. Today’s 24/7 world is not suitable for the human body; or in other words, the 24/7 person is still to be created. Huge efforts are devoted to the manipulation of the body clock in order to achieve a sleepless, fully awake human being. (5) In Rhythms of Life: The Biological Clocks that Control the Daily Lives of Every Living Thing, biologists Russell Foster and Leon Kreitman ask: “Can we create a world in which we can manipulate time to offer a time paradise or ‘Uchronia’ for a time-stressed populace? Or will it be the time hell of ‘Dyschronia’? “ (6) Conceived in collaboration with chronobiologists and sociologists of time, Around a Day addresses the conflict between the clock's artifice and our biological rhythms by proposing an alternative time system based on a circadian rhythm. Hours, minutes, and seconds recede in importance as the body becomes the zeitgeber (time-giver).

Every culture has a deeply rooted and particular perspective on social time, each with “its own unique set of temporal fingerprints.” (7) Time serves as a “frame of reference” (8) understood and applied by people within each society—a synchronization device developed by all of us together. From birth onwards, our specific cultural temporality becomes deeply encoded, almost like a sixth sense. (9) As the sociologist Norbert Elias explains in his classic work Time: An Essay, a sense of time becomes part of each individual’s personality, as if no other time structure could be possible. The temporal, cultural system, with all its facets, becomes deeply embodied as early as the age of seven when an understanding of the notion of the clock develops. (10) Certainly, any Western system is undergoing perpetual change, and one of the driving forces for change is rooted in new technologies. These technologies influence our temporal existence and play a determining role in forming and reconfiguring how we understand and use time. The mobile phone has changed our behaviour in relation to how we arrange appointments. Today, punctuality has given way to flexibility. (11) The measurement of time by the clock is still pivotal, but societal synchronization dynamics have changed as a result of digital technologies. These developments have led to the current state of Western society as an “instant network society” or “high-speed society.” (12) The embodiment of the rhythm and speed of digital life creates an atmosphere in which time pressures and the scarcity of time are perceived as increasing. (13) The natural rhythmicity of the human biological clock, however, conflicts with such contemporary algorithmic structures and inhumane rhythms.

In everyday life we are used to checking the time as a reference point for working hours, meal times, rest, or sleep. Alan Lightman, in the novel Einstein’s Dreams, critiques a world running on mechanical time:

. . . there are those who think their bodies don’t exist. They live by mechanical time. They rise at seven o’clock in the morning. They eat their lunch at noon and their supper at six. They arrive at their appointments on time, precisely by the clock. They make love between eight and ten at night . . . When their stomach growls, they look at their watch to see if it is time to eat. (14)

The clock directs people’s behaviour. Around a Day argues for an alternative structure in relationship to time and space. Rather than being guided by clock time, body rhythms become the essential guiding criteria. The basis for this is chronobiological research, (15) which categorizes human biological rhythms into three rhythmic domains: an ultradian rhythm of less than twenty hours (e.g., the heartbeat), a circadian rhythm of around 24 to 25 hours (e.g., the sleep-and-wake cycle), and the infradian rhythm of 28 or more hours (e.g., the menstrual cycle). (16) Around a Day divides the daily rhythm into seven phases of rest, transition and activity: the sleep phase, the wake-up phase, the cognitive performance phase, the nap phase, the physical performance phase, the intuitive phase, and the sleepiness phase. Implementing this seven phase schematic provides a novel temporal perspective: the duration of each phase varies from person to person and day by day, taking into account that bodily rhythms are flexible in comparison to the rigidity of clock time. The individual’s relationship to time is not fragmented into hours, minutes and seconds, but relates to biological criteria such as peak logical reasoning, peak muscle strength, or peak body temperature. This opens up an alternative way to structure time, independent of today’s standardized time scheduling.

The photo series Around a Day is part of my ongoing research on these seven bodily phases. Over the period of around 24 to 25 hours, the photographer Tereza Červeňova and I observed and documented the circadian rhythm of one person (model Delfina Fantini van Ditmar). She was briefed only to live her day without any clock-giving device and following her daily bodily rhythm. Nothing was staged; the model wore no makeup and the photographer and I worked only with existing light sources, choosing instead to concentrate on how the body slowly changes over the course of the day. Working mostly in portraits and close-ups, the image series captures the peak moments of each stage, on how her body transforms over this period of time.

If I were not there to make them acquainted,
my morning's self would not recognize my evening's.
—André Gide

Wake-Up Phase

The wake-up phase is one of the shortest phases, with an average of between half an hour to one hour. In this stage, the body undergoes a transition from sleep to wake, from lying to standing wide awake. Biological attributes include the sharpest rise of blood pressure, cortisol and testosterone secretion, while melatonin secretion stops. The ideal lighting condition is a sunrise moment: from a dark reddish, low-light intensity to an activating blue with higher intensity.

Cognitive Performance Phase

The first peak of the day is the cognitive performance phase. It is one of the longest phases, with a duration of approximately three to five hours. During this period, the body is at its peak with regard to concentration, short-term memory, and logical reasoning. The heart rate and blood pressure are at their maximum. The body position might vary over the course of the phase, changing from active positions of walking and standing to sitting still. Concerning the light, it is at its brightest stage, in full spectrum. This is again comparable with the path of the sun through the course of the day, which is at its highest point.

Nap Phase

At an interval of approximately twelve hours from the point of deepest sleep (in the sleep phase), the body undergoes a second rest phase as part of the circadian rhythm. The nap phase lasts for around thirty minutes to two hours. In this stage, alertness and concentration significantly decrease. The phase is not intended for deep sleep in complete darkness, but rather for taking a rest and contemplating. In terms of light, dimmed lights of a very low lux rate consisting of red-orange light are ideal.

Physical Performance Phase

The second peak of the day is the physical performance phase, with an average duration of three to five hours. Bodily strength is at its peak, and this is categorised as the most active phase within the circadian rhythm. The biological attributes of this phase are peaks in alertness, grip strength, muscle strength, lung and cardiovascular performance, cardiovascular strength, the highest body temperature and blood pressure, as well as lowest sleep propensity. The ideal light conditions are external day light. The duration of the physical performance phase is in contrast to present-day living conditions. The predominate body position of an average city dweller is sitting for up to fifteen hours each day. (17)

Intuitive Phase

This stage is a cool-down phase, where creative thinking and playfulness is at its peak. The mind starts to wander, logical thinking dissolves into a rather playful stage. The light modulates through a variety of colours representing a sunset moment.

Sleepiness Phase

From the intuitive phase the body experiences a smooth transition into the sleepiness phase. The hormone melatonin sets in, which leads to a decrease in alertness and sleepiness. At a duration of around two to three hours, this phase coincides with the biological processes of increased sleepiness and suppressed bowel movements, leading to the sleep phase. In terms of light, the sleepiness phase is associated with a dimmed light of a very low lux rate consisting of red-orange hues.

Sleep Phase

The sleep phase is the longest stage of the circadian rhythm, but varies widely from five to eleven hours for an adult. In this phase, the body experiences its deepest sleep, lowest alertness, and lowest body temperature. The light condition represents the night and the subject is ideally in complete darkness.

Around a Day is designed to influence our thinking on how we structure time in relationship to the body and space by introducing alternative criteria for a temporal structure outside the current norm. Critical here is that social time norms are not regulated. They are constantly evolving, depending on culturally anchored codes following certain patterns of behaviour. The sociologist Eviatar Zerubavel defines in Hidden Rhythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life what he calls the sociotemporal order. (18) It is responsible for the regulation of the structure and dynamic of societal life, while the biotemporal order governs the organism. In contrast to the sociotemporal order, the biotemporal order is reliant upon a certain rigidity. Specifically, through the daily rhythmic cycle of rest and activity, the body clock provides such a determined framework that it can serve as the underlying model for the development of new temporal structures. This includes long segments of time, such as sleep and wake periods, and brief time segments, like the pulse and the heartbeat. The human circadian rhythm is a way of thinking and living based on bodily time. Through it we can imagine a new temporal paradigm such as the one described in this passage from Einstein’s Dreams:

These people do not keep clocks in their houses. Instead, they listen to their heartbeats. They feel the rhythms of their moods and desires. Such people eat when they are hungry, go to their jobs . . . whenever they wake from sleep, make love all hours of the day. Such people laugh at the thought of mechanical time. They know that time moves in fits and starts. (19)

Fundamentally in my work, I aim to shift the current perspective of time to a space for visions and dreams about our temporal existence.

Around a Day is not a blueprint for “perfect” timing, or a strict set of rules on how to structure your day. It is rather a wake-up call, in contrast to traditional categories and understandings of time. Now, more than ever before, it is up to an individual as to how to structure their time. A full schedule does not necessarily equate to time fulfilled. No device and no other person can solve or make these decisions for each of us. In the here and now, every day bears anew the potential to explore and experience uchronia, the temporal utopia. A meaningful new temporal structure based on physiotemporal and biotemporal order must therefore be discussed at the individual level. This personal experience connects to the larger conversation, allowing for the initiation of a change to the conventional sociotemporal rules of our contemporary world.

Endnotes

(1) Byung-Chul Han, The Scent of Time (translated excerpt of Duft der Zeit), (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2009), 7–8.

(2) Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, Inc., 1934), 15.

(3) Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (New York: Verso Books, 2014).

(4) Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society (Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2015), 8.

(5) Russell G. Foster and Leon Kreitzman, Rhythms of Life: The Biological Clocks that Control the Daily Lives of Every Thing of Every Living Thing (London: Profile Books, 2004)

(6) Ibid, 242.

(7) Jeremy Rifkin, Time Wars: The Primary Conflict in Human History ( New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989 ), 9.

The term temporal is understood as “relating to or denoting time or tense,” see Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “Temporal, adj., ” accessed January 28, 2019. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/temporal

(8) A detailed definition of social time by is given in the later section “What is Time ? ” See Norbert Elias, Time: An Essay (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993 ), 73, and S. Tabboni, “The idea of social time in Norbert Elias,” Time & Society 1, 10 ( 2001): 5 – 27.

(9) Ibid, 139.

(10) Rifkin, Time Wars, 57.

(11) Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity ( New York: Columbia University Press, 2013 ), 231–236.

(12) Hartmut Rosa and William E. Scheuerman, eds., High-Speed Society: Social Acceleration, Power, and Modernity (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010).

(13) Judy Wajcman, Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 4.

(14) Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), 18– 20.

(15) The study of biological rhythmsis called chronobiology. The word is based on the ancient Greek term “chronos” meaning time, “bios” meaning life, and “logos” meaning study. See Jay C. Dunlap, Jennifer J. Loros, and Patricia J. DeCoursey, Chronobiology: Biological Timekeeping (Sunderland: Sinauer Associates Inc., 2003), 4.

(16) Willard L. Koukkari and Robert B. Sothern, Introducing Biological Rhythms: A Primer on the Temporal Organization of Life, with Implications for Health, Society, Reproduction, and the Natural Environment (New York: Springer-Verlag, 2005), 7.

(17) James Levine, “Lethal Sitting: Homo Sedentarius Seeks Answers,” Physiology 5: 29 (2013), 300–301.

(18) Eviatar Zerubavel, Hidden Rhythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

(19) Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams, 18–19.

Bio

Helga Schmid is an artist/designer and researcher. She is currently a resident at Studio 48 at Somerset House and Senior Tutor in the School of Communication at the Royal College of Art. Her work has been exhibited and featured in publications, blogs and magazines worldwide and she has received a number of international awards including the Type and Art Directors Award, Best German Books Award, a Fulbright and two DAAD scholarships.