This week’s discussion about time really threw me for a loop. While the group was discussing timelines and how they display time, I was having an existential crisis. Time is a very tricky thing, a man made invention. Everyone perceives time differently, so how can you use a digital tool to show the different perceptions time? The western world conceptualizes time as a straight line. I have been reading the book Outlander which is about a WWII combat nurse who travels back in time to 1746. If you make a straight timeline of her life, it wouldn’t make any sense. To complicate this issue of the straight line, imagine what the Doctor’s timeline from Doctor Who would look like. Most of the digital timelines we have looked at are linear. Is there a way to create a time mapping tool that isn’t a line and doesn’t utilize a western perception of time?
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I actually went to a conference session on time at the Keystone DH conference; the presenter talked about two ways we perceive time: our linear movement through time, and how we experience time as humans. Since we often view time as slowing up or speeding down depending on what we are doing, how can we represent that in the digital humanities? Is there a good way to really recreate how humans experience time? http://keystonedh.network/2016/abstracts/#submission-50