This is the thesis for MFA degree. In this thesis, my body of work visualizes the flexibility of time. It structures the sequence of time to reveal these dislocated fractures within the time system itself, as well as in the relation of time to human experience.

Thanks to technology we have atomic clocks and atomic time—the most accurate time and frequency standard invited so far. Time is considered a fair and impartial unit of measurement given to us 24 hours a day on our phones and laptops. In reality, however, time is flexible and uneven in our ability to process time. Our time perception which is not measurable is not synchronized to this standard time system. The psychological time experience derives entirely from subjective factors and is unrelated to the intrinsic qualities of mechanical time. The gap or the dislocation between our time perception and man-made time system, and also inside the time system itself, generates many questions like Paul Davis, a professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Adelaide in Australia, asked: "But whose time is the Bonn clock telling anyway? Your time? My time? God’s time? Are the scientists in that cluttered laboratory monitoring the pulse of the universe, fastidiously tracking some abstract cosmic time with atomic fidelity? Might there be another clock, perhaps on another planet somewhere, faithfully ticking out another time altogether, to the joy of its makers?" My body of works is a process of asking those questions with looking at the gap of time closer. My design works probe into these unevenness arbitrary dislocation in my time perception. I make a form to reveal the gap or reveal the gap to make a form.

The works probe into these uneven, arbitrary dislocations in time, inviting a form/content dialogue. In some cases I make a form to reveal the inconsistency; in other instances, I reveal the inconsistency to make a form. Whether attempting to live without a clock for the day, marking current time with puzzle pieces, or observing the factor of unevenness through the idea of a leap second, methods of distortion and sequencing come into play. I engage this flexible space while also offer it to viewers wondering if we can ever be on the same time. The way of approach to this thesis is inspired by the film “The Man With a Movie Camera” by Dziga Vertov. The Man With a Movie Camera is a compelling and delightful exploration of the life of a cameraman in the Soviet Union of the 1920s. It observes and records life with various skills of shooting and editing, and the whole collage draws conclusions from those observations. The structure of this film, which one subject is projected with diverse ways and the whole body of all pieces delivers the author’s message, became my attitude toward my thesis subject. The reason why I took his attitude to one topic is that with only one approach, it delivers only some fragments of a message.

The projects in this thesis represents the flexibility of time both as graphical expression, and also a container within which content is developed. My body of works can be divided into two categories in terms of the way of dealing with time: 1. Forms To Frame Time Time is what we experience. The physicists will usually say, “Ours is the real time—and all that there really is. The richness of human psychological time derives entirely from subjective factors and is unrelated to the intrinsic qualities of real, physical time.”? The projects in this category were produced by looking closely at the relationship between time and our experiences of it. Every project in this category is the result of an exertion to frame a concept of time. Each result has a unique medium and function to invite viewers as active participants to experience the notion of temporality. Viewers can naturally realize the flow of time by playing a game. By watching a series of videos, you can experience subjectively stretched or compressed time. Through a simple interactive piece, viewers will see the time gap between events. Also a certain typographic treatment leads viewers to get closer to posters or gain a distance from them to understand a certain statement about time. 2. Forms Framed By Time In this section, I reshape the relation between the form and theme: time functions as a device to make a form. Parts of notions about time become ideas to generate visual elements and unique forms. Each project has been created out of my perspective of time using the filter of rhetorical graphic design method: simplifying an idea, expanding a concept, or using metaphors. Through this treatment, I look into my interests and proclivity as a graphic designer, and constantly revisit, reexamine, and re-express central theme to build a body of work and emerge a message.6 With a short test of time perception, I generate a set of data and visualize them with the language of graphic design: bitmap and resolution. In some projects, a specific time concept itself becomes an inspiration and an opportunity to observe other objects, and one of conventions of standard time system is reinterpreted to an idea and it becomes to a concept which structures the sequence of a book.

Through this work, I see how forms are generated from the content while considering how the interaction with both form and content helps viewers to understand the concept. Even though this inquiry began with a personal interest in time, the study of the relationship between forms and contents was executed naturally through scientific methods, philosophical thinking, and artistic expression to find rational ways of visualization. Therefore, my body of works became a thesis dealing with methodologies contributing to graphic design development as a mean to materialize a specific concept.