ant time

Experimental Clock

Designing and making an experimental clock that expresses a novel way of tracking time.
The number of ants on screen corresponds to the minute, the speed of the ants corresponds to the seconds, the background color corresponds to the hour/time of day. The ants change orientation to face the mouse cursor.
→ link to code

Design Process

My clock still uses standardized time, but represents those numbers with ants in a field. The number of ants corresponds to the number of minutes, the grass color/lighting is determined by the hour, and the movement of the ants/frame rate is determined by the seconds. The ants change direction in relation to mouse position.
Even though I’m using the numbers in a rather direct way, I think the way I’ve represented things makes it a lot harder to accurately read it. You have to rely on mostly non-numeric indicators to determine some kind of relative time based on relative measurements, and you have to have some kind of understanding of what represents what in my clock. (But I don’t think it’s that hard to figure out). You can certainly count the ants but once it starts getting into higher numbers it’s just not practical to do so.

My initial three ideas were a walking animation, ants, and a dripping water faucet.

I went with the ants because I thought it’s scope would be pretty reasonable and I was just really in the mood for ants. I’ve often considered myself an ant in the world so I thought it was very fitting for a more personal point.

In order for this to work, I had to make the ants objects with a Class.
The drawing of the ant shape/function that draws an ant is from this js library I wrote last semester. (I just added the ant function in a separate js file). I also added a parameter that moves the antennae to change the direction of the ants based on whether the mouseX is greater or less than the ant X position to add a bit of interactivity.
The background color/grass color is determined by the hour, and very much based on my experience of the “schedule” of light and dark outside. I used a map function for that, and divided up the hours manually.

Reflection

I’ve learned that I’m very very reliant on a standardized time. Even in trying to evaluate my personal time, that standardized time comes into play somewhere. Specifically with this project of designing an unconventional clock, All the things happening were still directly in relation to the number of hours, minutes, and seconds being registered, the predetermined and nonpersonal units of measurement. I can’t escape it. :0