Timeless Probe

Interactive Motorized Device: Creating Performative Shadow Environments Responsive to Motion

Timeless Probe, 2019

600 x 600 x 900 mm

aluminium, steel, DC motors, ultrasonic sensor, torch, PCB board, water, laser

Timeless Probe is an interactive device that embeds the narratives of Einstein’s Block Universe Theory. The motorized arms rotate and swing according to the average velocity calculated using the position data of the person in the vicinity. The design evolved from the reinterpretation of the object pendulum.

Time is not a flowing entity. It is just like any other spatial entity: x-coordinate, y-coordinate and z-coordinate. The t-coordinate the observer ends up in is determined by one’s interaction with the direct surrounding.

The film shows how space-time is perceived through Timeless Probe’s vantage point. A series of events of ‘picking up the book‘ exist in various forms of coordination. There are other t-axes accounting for the equal set of x, y, z axes. Hence the set of events being played repetitively within the film.

Input: position of the observer in vicinity

Conversion: average speed at a fixed time interval

Output: angular position of the pendulum’s arm