The experience of time on the physical body passes so smoothly we never notice, we are thoroughly immersed, and like fish, only dimly aware we are in "an environment." Unlike fish, we eventually drown in it. Time: it's the most toxic environment within which we can live for an extended period.

The body hardly becomes aware of how much time passes unless you pay attention to the body. Then it seems to note every second, and then as they pile up, every second amplifies to a bell toll, a thunder crack. Spending a day stopping occasionally to move in slow motion presents this curious phenomenon.

Your muscles start to ache when you move slowly enough. Simple tasks—standing up from a chair, eating, drinking, moving a piece of equipment across a desk—take on a laborious, epic quality. The sweat beads, the breathing is harder to keep track of, to control. While I'm moving this jar of pencils across a table, I likewise struggle to slow down my breathing. While I stand and walk out of the room I strain and twitch halfway out of my chair. I'm drinking slowly, but drops of liquid fall on my chin or hand at a regular pace, and tickle as I move absurdly slowly to wipe them up.

Walking back to the room after a meeting I find each step a labor, a small battle. Going to your car, opening the door over the course of 2 minutes the seconds weight you down eventually.



To more thoroughly document this, I set up the built in isight camera on my desktop computer to observe me while I worked, first on my normal daily job, then into the evening as I struggled with the masters thesis that's been whipping me over the last several weeks.

The interval was 1 frame every 2 seconds. The slow motion minutes are visible in the video as actions that are almost "normal" speed. Slow motion movement present an intriguing picture within the timelapse technique, as I learned about from my friend Chris, who often shot long timelapses at events and then during the shooting would move into the frame very slowly. Taking one step every 8 seconds, for example. On playback the effect is electrifying as chaos happens and then out of the heart of the swirling image this figure appears, moving at a "regular" pace. During the slow motion minutes I spent in front of the iSight, I counted silently to myself, trying to change my position only every four seconds or so. I got pretty good at it by the end of the day, moving fairly smoothly in the playback. I also became intentional on some of the occasions, knowing that I was "performing" the slow motion minutes. I enjoyed the self conscious action and stuck in a few direct addresses to the camera. However, most of the day I let go and you are seeing my unvarnished actions at work.

Please enjoy.

Youtube links also created:
part 1
part 2