http://gu.com/p/3cc9p – “A stopwatch on the brain’s perception of time” – by Marc Gozlan for the Guardian

Fascinating article on human perception of time, with variables of age, emotion and empathic-capacity. The research findings are familiar idioms – “Oh my how time flies when you’re having a hoot!”

“We must put aside the idea of a single time; all that counts are the multiple times that make up experience” (Bergson).  The philosopher Henri Bergson is an interesting reference in the article, duly apt; for me, he is a type of humanist-thinking middle-man between scientific investigators and thing-designers [e.g. architects].

“The objects which surround my body reflect its possible action upon them” (Bergson 1896).

Regarding this quote above, when studying in Dundee I used Bergson’s theories to broaden my definition of architecture – initially with the conversation between the body and it’s context (e.g. space, objects…). Bergson’s theories propose innate (super)human abilities – about objects in space and projecting our bodies, senses or uses with almost-telepathic, physically-ineffect.

Though getting back to the original article; the rich and oft over-looked idea of “the perception of time” registers relatively infrequently on architectural radars. Bernard Tschumi’s Manhattan Transcripts (see above) is fringe reference, and, by extension, Andrew Skulina’s “Mapping Blue Velvet”, published in matzine#12, which looked at the sequence of events-in-space of David Lynch’s classic film. (See below)