The second experiment for my Time Scales project is complete, and above is the diagram to prove it!

This time, I was assisted by my friend Siân in making the relational time recordings. This allowed far more flexibility in what could be recorded, as we could compare a greater number of processes. For instance, deseeding a pepper vs slicing a tomato, whilst at the same time heating some oil.

It also gave greater impeteus to be playful. Okay, I guess slicing my finger and having Siân run off and get a plaster doesn’t quite count as playful, but there was something nice about integrating this into the recording process. Likewise, with measuring the time spent actually making the recordings as an inherent part of the process. And there was a bit of silliness - like measuring the slicing of garlic against throwing a lemon in the air and catching it (garlic and lemon go well together).

This didn’t deter me from having the strange, anomalous solitary recordings though. What kind of knowledge is created through all this? For sure, these recordings are mostly unusable even by me - what kind of change of conduct could arise from knowing it takes roughly three times as long to slice an yellow onion lengthways as it does to take off the dead leaves from a spring onion? (How big a onion? How many leaves?) But, in the same way that taking notes can help us remember something without needing to refer back to the notes, perhaps such methods could bring more awareness of how we operate in different spheres, and - perhaps more importantly - how attempts to measure and codify them loop back into the processes themselves.