Project | Playing with Time

Introduction

What is the present and is the flow of time an illusion? These mind-bending questions are the catalyst for this project.

Funded by the Institute of Physics, the project coincides with their 2018 theme of 'time'. The aim is to engage families and independent adults with complex ideas relating to the physics and philosophy of time, through an exhibition of playful and accessible artworks.

Artist Alice Highet will work alongside Dr Beth Bromley at The Physics Department, Durham University to explore how fundamental theories of physics such as relativity and thermodynamics, describe the nature of time and how this relates to our experience of lived time.

The resulting exhibition is at the Oriental Museum, Durham University from 20th October - 11th November, exploring the physics themes outlined above. It encompasses 3 interactive, kinetic and optical sculptural objects, alongside 3 video works, made by Alice Highet. The exhibition will be accompanied by a booklet and this website explaining both the art and the physics.

Underlying themes

Through the discussions about ‘time’ and thermodynamics for this project some overarching themes started to emerge, connecting Alice’s creative ideas to Beth’s understanding of physics.

It is clear that in thinking about thermodynamics we are dealing with order versus chaos or Enthalpy versus Enthropy and that these processes apply to all systems. Enthalpy is how a system is held together, its internal energy. Entropy expresses the disorder and randomness of a system. As disordered states are typically much more numerous than ordered ones, a system will almost always be in the state of disorder or moving towards it.

These are ideas that we can clearly see in our human experience of time. We constantly come up against experiences of chaos winning over order, such as when we spill something or our house accumulates dust. Through the experience of ageing, like all systems, we are moving towards disorder.

In physics, invisible systems are at work underneath the visible world we can see. It is interesting to think how these systems directly affect our lived experience.

Thank you

Thanks go to Dr Beth Bromley for her collaboration on this project, to Rachel Barclay and Alix Collingwood-Swinburn, curators at Durham University and to the Institute of Physics for their generous funding. Special thanks go to David Schofield, without whose ingenuity and skill this project would not have been possible.