 and invite visitors to take in special programs, including this panel and Q&A on designing time. I'm very pleased to be joined by Brittany Cox, Antiquarian Oralogist at Memoria Technica, Lena Sutherland, CEO at Tealeeves, whose glorious teas you all have on your seats, Albert Schum, CVP of Design at Microsoft. We will give a series of short presentations followed by a conversation where we'll invite Q&A from the audience. So please, we welcome your participation in the discussion following our presentations. So design and time are two universal concepts on which we aim to offer a broad range of perspectives today as we trace from the past to the present and look to the future. We will take you on a journey from the Gregorian calendar of the 15th century and automatons of the 18th century to the enduring ritual of the tea ceremony and contemporary computing devices that mark time. Here at Cooper Hewitt, we enjoy linking the past to the present and showing concepts across time period and place. And today we will show how the fabric of time facilitates this approach. Summer is one of the best seasons at Cooper Hewitt where when the weather cooperates, we can all enjoy the beauty of our Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden, from which there is a stunning view of Central Park and the stunning sunset due west, which reminds us, of course, of the daily timekeeping rhythms of nature. Cooper Hewitt occupies the former home of Andrew Carnegie built in 1902. Carnegie kept to a very strict daily schedule himself, thanks to a man named Arthur C. Gale, a composer and musician and the organist at the Broadway Tabernacle. Every morning, Gale, the organist, would be greeted by a servant at the door to the Carnegie mansion. He would make his way to the organ in the Great Hall and exactly at seven in the morning he would begin playing. The music would waft upstairs through the house and wake up Mr. and Mrs. Carnegie on the second floor, where their bedrooms are now two galleries housing the museum's permanent collection. On December 28th, 1905, the New York Times mentioned, it is understood that Mr. Gale is very well paid for getting up early enough in the morning to wake Andrew Carnegie. While I would dare to guess that none of us have pipe organs in our homes like Carnegie did, we all do use clocks and watches and other timekeeping devices, such as cell phones and car dashboards in our everyday lives. Heralding the official beginning of summer, this solstice is a cause for celebration, while also offering us the chance to look more closely at how designers have interacted with and continue to explore concepts of time in their practice, creating devices that help us to tell time and representing time in their graphic work. How do you encapsulate, educate, and share concepts of time in a museum? Cooper Hewitt has over 60 clocks in its collection, mantle clocks, alarm clocks, ornamental clocks in all shapes and sizes, some of which are shown on the screen here, designed by makers all over the world. I will spend a few minutes now revealing to you how the museum has collected time. The majority of the objects I'm going to show are on view right now in the museum, so feel free to keep your eyes peeled and go find them at another time. This perpetual calendar designed in 1967 is still well known to contemporary audiences. The Milanese manufacturer of this calendar often collaborated with the Italian designer Enzo Mari. Together they created a range of products from domestic tools to office supplies. Their products strove to underscore the dimension of play as a cognitive tool. The Timor calendar reflects this philosophy as it requires the user to flip around the adjustable arm for the date, month, day of the week. Here, in this artistic photo, we show all of the flaps fanned out and open. Telling time with this calendar turns it into a rhythmic movement and as the name suggests, the clock can be used year after year and in its practical design achievement, this has perhaps led to its enduring appeal. Enzo Mari has said, I approach everything I design with the deliberate intention of making it so that it would not age. Though Mari intended for this clock to never go out of style, its sculptural form shows the clean sleek lines popular in Italian design of the 1960s pop period. The use of plastic by Mari and many other leading Italian designers helped to earn the material a more sophisticated reputation. The simple San Serif font and elimination of ornamentation underscores its broad appeal. Enzo Mari's 1967 Timor calendar builds upon a long tradition of the design idiom of the perpetual calendar. This table for the Gregorian calendar is designed for a 400 year cycle. Such perpetual calendars permitted people for the first time to more easily calculate dates far into the future. This calendar shows 303 common years, 97 leap years, totaling 146,097 days or 20,871 weeks. The Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582 and was heavily promoted by the Catholic Church. This design is dedicated to Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandani, nephew to Pope Clement VIII, an important patron of the arts. The engravers whose names are prominently displayed may have dedicated this print in hope of future patronage. The circular table shows the arms of the Cardinal in the center. This print as an information graphic clearly indicates concept of time as a system. So building upon that principle and jumping forward in time, similar themes of order and logic in graphic design and functionalism were embraced by Dieter Rams at the German design firm Braun, where he began work in 1955. Dieter Rams said that good design should omit the unimportant in order to emphasize the important. This travel alarm clock embodies his philosophy and design aesthetic, one of which became iconic for Braun. The alarm clock features an easy-to-read San Serif font. Also, all of Braun's alarm clocks feature the same alarm sound and a yellow second hand. Dietrich Globes, the other designer of this clock, believed that the most attractive position for the arms of the clock was set at 10.08, exactly. And as such, this is how Braun always photographed these clocks for promotional material. The simple clean design of this alarm clock should not be mistaken for a simple design process, though. The designers strategically considered the user's environment and interactions with the product. This research-driven approach informed their choices. The ridged sides allow the user to feel his or her way around the alarm clock, even in the dark, or in a groggy state. The color-coded hands are easily visible in the dark. The design principles at work here, which favor function over superfluous ornamentation, remain popular in industrial and product design today. For instance, Apple, a brand frequently noted for its restrained and sophisticated use of color and line, borrowed the face of this and similar Braun clocks for their clock app in iOS 7 in 2013. With the integration of a clock app, our phones have become one of the major ways that all of us carry around timekeeping devices in our pockets or in our handbags. So this concept of time as being portable is not a new one with the invention of the pocket watch during dating to the 16th century and jumping ahead to the 20th century, this charming handbag watch of about 1933. In the 1930s, this handbag watch was a practical and attractive alternative to the wristwatch for women who preferred to fill their wrists with the large bracelets that were in vogue. Modern Plastics Magazine reported, investigation showed that to the powdery disarray of the modern lady's handbag, a grateful and decent size watch would be a welcome addition. The handbag watch was modeled in shape and size on the Elizabeth Arden, oops, sorry, makeup compact. The objects clever design, a marriage of fashion and industrial design wanted a position in a number of important exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1930s. The watch was affordable at $2.95 and first sold at Marshall Fields in Chicago before it became widely available throughout the country at department stores and gift stores and drug stores. A 1933 advertisement for the watch proclaimed, this new handbag watch leads a double life. The watch was sold with a collapsible easel so that it could be set up on a nightstand at home or a hotel room while traveling. Timekeeping and travel are two concepts that have been long connected. For over 50 years, the so-called Solari board displays the finest expression of design in many airports and train stations around the world have allowed travelers to view departures and arrivals with their distinctive flipping sound. This invention by the long-standing Italian clock-making firm revolutionized methods of time visualization and public information for travel. The first board was installed in Belgium in 1956. New York's TWA terminal was one such location of the Solari board. The original display on the screen here was designed by Italian architect, Gino Valley and enclosed by an oval shell designed by the terminal's architect, Ero Sarnin, completely covered with white Italian tiles. The structure was preserved and Solari is currently working on creating a new identical display when the terminal reopens as a hotel. Designed and created especially for travelers, Solari's flip clocks are used in homes and offices all around the world. The Chifra III has a case design by Gino Valley that is the ideal cylinder shape to house the rotary motion of the wheels inside. A testament to this clock's superior engineering, the design of this clock mechanism has remained unchanged since 1966. The split flap mechanism consists of two wheels of plastic flaps with white numbers on a black background. One wheel consisting of 48 flaps for the hours using the 24 hour time system and the other with 60 flaps for the minutes. Each number is displayed by two horizontal flaps presented together, hence the name split flap. An electronic motor turns the two sets of wheels continuously. The faster at a rate of one full revolution per hour and the slower at a rate of one full revolution per 24 hours. The clock produces a clearly audible flap around each minute and a pronounced loud flap each hour, reminiscent of the sound of the Solari boards at the train station and airports that I was just mentioning. The numbering in two different fonts for hours and minutes designed by Massino Vignelli appears in stark white on black contrast for pure readability. Since the invention of the Solari board in the mid 20th century, people's ability to travel to distant places and at more rapid rates has only increased. This design for time on the screen here has tried to capture this contemporary pace and the speed and fluidity of time and place that we now can all reach. This world clock is a pure expression of time and time zones. 24 city names are debossed along the cylindrical body. A user sets their local time via their city, which is displayed in the top position on the clock and internally held by a set of counterweights. Rolling the clock on a flat surface causes the clock face to rotate while the hands remain stationary, revealing a new city and its corresponding time. When the clock is released, it automatically rolls back to local time. So this world clock introduces a playful interaction between the user and the object to enhance its functionality. But what happens when elements of play integrate even more fully into the design of time? Cooper Hewitt's collection of clocks offers one possible result. Here is the ASCUE clock, designed by Emman Company in about 1989. The firm Emman Co founded by Timor Common was known for its innovative use of images and type to create imaginative and witty designs. Although the numbers of the ASCUE clock are jumbled, the clock still tells accurate time if the viewer reads the hands instead of the numbers. An oversized version of this clock appears on top of red square an apartment building that Emman Co designed on Houston and Avenue A here in New York City. This clock was one of a number that the firm Emman Co produced. All of these designs play with different ways to represent time, traditionally at the top with the Badoni, mixed up with the ASCUE, selectively with the five o'clock and out of focus with the fuzzy. One of my personal favorites, not pictured here, is a model called Time Flies where the clock is filled with white faux bird feathers. But in fact, the fuzzy clock here, while a cheeky design statement by Emman Co does lead me to my last point about telling time and vision. All of the devices that I have shown you so far are really only usable by sighted people. Here at Cooper Hewitt, we are embarking upon a number of accessibility initiatives so that we can strive for a more inclusive and welcoming environment for visitors of all abilities. And our current exhibition programming is addressing these themes. On view on the third floor exhibition, the senses designed beyond vision is the round white dot watch, a wrist watch with a dynamic Braille pin display. This is the world's first Braille watch. It shows time and Braille mode with traditional Braille numbers and tactile mode for non-Braille readers. The dot watch can be connected to a smartphone app called the Dot Watch app to receive information such as GPS navigation, call and text message notifications, as well as the date and time. This is the very first time that active Braille technology is put into motion and integrated into a mobile form, the perfect balance of design and accessibility. So now I'm going to pass the podium onto other members of the panel to continue this exploration of designing time across a broad range of perspectives. Hi, my name is Brittany Nicole Cox. I'm an anti-crime horologist with Memoria Technica. I mostly work on antique automata, mechanical music and complicated clocks and watches. Excited to be here as a member of this event and share a subject that's so near and dear to my heart with you. So time has been around obviously as long as we have or at least our concept of time and wanting to make things that help us tell time. Well, mechanisms that were made to measure time could also be used to create moving figures and this is perhaps one of the earliest marriages, I would say, of both engineering and art. So this is a clock that was designed possibly between 1,000 and 1,400 AD by a Muslim scholar and inventor, Al-Jazari. This elephant clock was especially intricate. So you can see that there are many figures here and every half hour the bird on the top of the clock whistled, the man below dropped a ball into the dragon's mouth and the driver hit the elephant with his goat. So it's a pretty novel piece here quite early and it only gets a little more interesting as we continue. You can see there are four different pieces here. More conventionally, this is on the left, you see the Salisbury clock, which is not our earliest but our oldest working clock today, it's from 1386. So other clocks from the 14th century were certainly documented and we know that those were, some of them were astronomical and either have been lost or destroyed but we do have some documentation of these. The one on the top right is one of our earliest mechanical watches, portable watch. So the history of watches began in the 16th century in Europe where watches evolved from portable spring-driven clocks which was mostly coming about in the 15th century due to the invention of the main spring. So the main spring basically allowed us to move from clocks that were weight-driven to clocks that were spring-driven and in this case when we were able to create a miniature table clock it wasn't a long time before we were able to create portable clocks which basically were large watches. This one is 1530. So also we have in the left bottom corner where we moved from not just mechanical clocks from the church but mechanical devices being used for other purposes. So the church used clocks mostly to regulate time and prayer but later they ended up using it to create mechanical, basically heavens and hells and different displays for their viewers and in this case on the left we have King Philip II creating a mechanical penitent monk that was mechanized just to pray basically. So when his son fell down some stairs he made a bargain with God. He basically said, God if you can heal my son I will create a small miracle and he hired the court mechanist to create this praying monk which is actually pretty complex and this is I guess pretty early. Also the 1500s and then in the bottom right we have the astronomical clock from Prague and this clock was I think the earliest piece of this clock is from 1410. So we're looking at a very old piece there and these were made mostly for astronomical observations but also to distinguish different cities in Europe. So you had different kingdoms in Europe or different areas in Europe provinces trying to create the most dynamic astronomical clock compared to other cities. So some of these would be musical, they would have figures and each one was kind of trying to top the next. So we also have mechanics helping us with navigation and other explorations. As you can see we have our very first ships chronometer which was a result of the Queen Anne Act, the Longitude Act of 1714 which was made by John Harrison. So this allowed us to calculate Longitude XC. On the right we have, that's actually Apollo 16 but it's a better picture than the one for Apollo 11 but our very first moon landing was a success because we had a mechanical timer that allowed us to create a safe moon landing. The electronic timer actually malfunctioned and they used this mechanical timer that worked in intervals of 60 seconds and six minute intervals to ensure that the moon landing was safe. What's also interesting is that engineers currently are working on a clockwork rover for Venus. So this picture on the left is from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and there's a gentleman named Jonathan Sotter there who was inspired by the mechanical adding machines that were created by Charles Babbage and he was a scientist in the 1700s that was creating these machines and so this is a clockwork rover entirely mechanical they're creating for Venus hopefully exploration there because electronic timers and that such will not withstand the temperatures and the extremes that the mechanical ones will. So horology as you can see has been used for a number of different achievements in time. So we're using these mechanical objects that we're really just for making to calculate time to do a lot of other things. We're using it for exploration, navigation, we're using it for strange little mechanical figures as well as astronomical observations. Well, it was also used to look at some interesting philosophical questions. So this is a Jack Adreau's there on the left. He was a clockmaker and watchmaker who's in Switzerland and he created some of the most complex androids that were ever created at that time and there was a big period of people using these mechanisms to start looking at these questions. So we were looking at our nature as are we machines, are we people, how are we made, what are we made of? And so you can see Jack Adreau's with these three automaton there. Those are the writer, the draftsman and the piano player and each of these were actually able to perform the acts that previous automata could only simulate. So in these cases he had actually made mechanical figures that were able to draw, able to write sentences and play the piano. He also is responsible for the invention of singing birds. So singing birds have a long and beautiful and interesting history and this is one of the earliest ones. It's a tiny ivory bird that's all painted there and has a tiny miniature pipe organ inside for its voice. It's a very short clip but you get the idea. Really quite sweet. These actually evolved to include a sliding whistle in a bellow system instead of a pipe organ which was a little more sophisticated than they were able to miniaturize this a bit more and do more sophisticated things with the mechanisms. So when I was talking about the writer, that is an incredible piece because it's possibly one of the first programmable computers. So this was actually an ancestor to the modern computer today. This had over 40 characters, little letters that could be arranged and rearranged in any sequence to create any word or any sentence. So he was actually programmable and you could write any message you wanted with him. And this was all done just with brass and steel and all of the intricate mechanisms that we used to tell time or we used to use to tell time on a regular basis. So they were taking these things to whole other levels. We also have horology creating some of our earliest recordings of music. So they were taking a lot of these mechanisms. So Charles Clay was a clockmaker in London in 1723 and he was taking mechanical clocks and creating these mechanical organs and actually working with composers and other artists of the time to write and create songs for his clocks. So we know that George Friedrich Handel actually composed at least 10 tunes for these clocks and what's incredible about that is that these clocks allowed the composer to create different structures to the music that weren't previously capable by human hands. So it allowed a musician to write music that we didn't really have access to that mechanically programmed we could do more with. So these early songs, if the composer was actually composing these tunes for them, I think there's research that would support the idea that possibly if he was pinning those barrels, these are the very first recordings we have of the musician. So the clock on the left was actually made by James, sorry, John and George Pike, who were basically the successors to Charles Clay and inherited most of his castings and different things from his workshops when he died. On the right we have Robert Houdin. So after this incredible recordings of music, we're getting music, we're getting birds, we're getting entertainment, we're getting automata, we're also getting magic. So horology is now being used in magic shows. So Robert Houdin was a clockmaker. He was born in 1805 and he married the daughter of a famous clockmaker in Paris, Cecil Houdin, and he actually changed his name to incorporate Houdin. So he became Jean Eugene Robert Houdin. And Robert Houdin was also the son of a clockmaker and he had traditionally planned to be a clockmaker and studied law as well, but by a strange coincidence when he went to purchase a couple of books on clockmaking, he found that the bookkeeper had actually given him two books on magic instead and history was made. This is the father of modern magic. He was one of the very first to incorporate horology into his shows and he was actually the very first one to incorporate electricity. So his tricks were absolutely world famous, world renowned and this is the mechanical orange tree. I highly recommend looking this trick up. You can see a modern version of this tree because we don't know what happened to the original but a recreation was made by John Gone. He's a mechanical magician's magician, shall you say, so he creates tricks for magicians but the Paul Daniels magic show actually featured one of these orange trees on the show so you can see this trick operating, which is quite incredible. So he was world famous and he inspired Peter Karl Fabergé. So I'm sure a lot of you know about Peter Karl Fabergé and he was the Russian goldsmith to the Tsar, Nicholas II. And Nicholas II had a standing order for Easter eggs, two Easter eggs every year to celebrate. He gave one to his mother and one to his wife and I think the mother got the best of the eggs because she got all of the wonderful automaton eggs and this one was actually a commemoration of the orange tree. Not only was it a commemoration of Robert Houdin's orange tree but it was also a commemoration of the singing bird as you can see. Instead of having these butterflies that extend from the top and carry the ring of someone that he vanished from the audience, it has a bird that pops out and sings. We also have a very important object that's near and dear to my heart and that's the silver swan automaton. So this is another one of those 18th century inventions. James Cox and John Joseph Merlin were makers in London and John Joseph Merlin was a Belgian inventor who also invented the inline roller skate and was doing this kind of stuff in between when he was working for James Cox. So the silver swan automaton is an incredible mechanism, has 113 articulated silver rings in its neck that allow the swan to descend its neck all the way down and pluck up a fish from a bed of water. So we have these contra-rotating glass rods that simulate water and in between are little fish that are swimming and it actually preens its feathers, moves down and plucks up a fish. So you should look that up as well. There's videos of this stuff online. But Faberge obviously being taken by these inventions and inspired by these craftsmen of the past decided to commemorate a lot of these objects in his work and especially in the Easter eggs. So he created this beautiful little swan Easter egg, also a gift to the mother. And it was likely a homage to this swan by James Cox because he also did this beautiful peacock automaton. So this peacock was also made by James Cox. It was purchased by Catherine the Great and I believe arrived at the Hermitage in the 1780s. It took them I believe about 15 years to reassemble the peacock from when it was received and get it all working. But this peacock actually is pretty much in the original state that it was when it arrived at the Hermitage. So if you ever see this, you're looking straight back into the 18th century as close to an original object as you could possibly get. So this peacock has many different mechanical facets but the peacock raises its tail, there's a little rooster that crows, there's a singing bird in a cage and there's also an owl. So it was really pretty elaborate. And Peter Carl Faberge, being the principal keeper of the object in the Hermitage at one point in his career, had access to all of these objects. So many of the pieces that he made were inspired by many of the things in the collection. So there on the right, you can see another beautiful Easter egg that was also given to the Tsar's mother. And here it is in operation. This was fully enameled. It was gold, pretty much every piece that Peter Carl Faberge made was gold and often plated in silver or whatever other material. And in this case, it was fully enameled and jeweled and it sits in this beautiful tree enclosed by a rock crystal egg. So you can see it through there. So those are just some of the things I wanted to share with you about horology and the way that we've used it and we've basically used it to design and create these incredible objects. And I will go ahead and give it over to Lana. Thank you. It's right I didn't get a chance to practice this beforehand so please, apology if I end up going back into horology and other areas that I know nothing about but I know more now than I did before. Big thank you both to Emily and Brittany at hard dots to follow. So good afternoon, my name is Lana Sutherland and I'm proud to be here from Tea Leafs and there's a few of us floating through the audience here today. Hopefully I have a chance to chat with them. So unlike taking you into the past or even delving a little bit into the future I'm actually hoping to keep you in the present. So here in the present it is a perfect time for us to pause and it may be hard for most people here from New York that might be a really hard thing to do but I'm hoping you'll bear with me and come along for the ride. So to lay out our mat of time and draw a cup of tea. These bosses are really so important nowadays in our busy lives. It is in these now rare times that we create spaces I think for dreaming and allow us to be more creative. So please, take a deep breath. Sorry I'm from the West Coast too so I don't know if it was a little too hippie to be for you but anyway just give you a warning I should have said that at the beginning. So try and take a deep breath. Let yesterday and tomorrow just drift away. Be the blossom in this cup, if that's not to you. If you feel like going there please go there. Float along with us, we will take you on a journey over a cup of tea. So this is really lovely I think quote from a Chinese philosopher Lin Yu Tan. There's something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation. Now as these misty figures here are doing right away into the, let go the past into the present. With our attention being pulled in so many different directions nowadays our minds tend to be a jumble of misty, variegated musings. However according to the laboratory of neural imagery at the University of Southern California we humans have on average 48.6 thoughts per minute. I think I get a lot of the 0.6s personally in my self but anyway all you average out much higher so we get to 48.6 thoughts per minute which I was actually pretty surprised with, excuse me. We're jumping around. Now at the same time the neuroscience also shows us that people are more creative when they are calmer and happier. So sipping tea engages our senses, it calms our mind. With tea as our vessel to sip and journey to explore we're able to focus on the single versus the many. Now many cultures around the world have known this for centuries that these tea moments help us to reframe our thinking and allow ourselves really just to get out of our way. So around the world many cultures have their own new tea rituals or moments. For example it could be from going from the dreamy chis up in India to the northern parts of the Silk Road into Russia. As you see here this is a hand-painted or hand-guilded Lomonossov tea pot. Perhaps it's being served to you in a Russian Samovar. In South America it would be taking to have Yerevanavte in the Kuya which is a hollowed out Kalabash gourd. I'm drawing through a bomba which is a traditional stainless steel metal straw which has actually this flat round disc that you can't quite see here in this photo. And that's for straining out the mate. Here in North America of course we know the traditional afternoon tea. And perhaps if you're so lucky you'll be drinking it from Haran Fine Porcelain. However you may also be familiar or having taken tea with somebody Asian and enjoyed traditional Yi Jing tea cups and tea pots for me of this rich Tara Clay. And they're beautiful. I mean if you've ever seen the Yi Hings they're actually regretting. I got all these slides for you. Regretting not having an image of it because they're just beautiful. There are many different shapes and sizes. Generally speaking though they tend to be on the small side because something that's very important to appreciating the tea especially in Asian culture is noticing the aroma before taking your first sip. It also helps put you in a certain mindset. And these are the Yi Hings actually are passed down from generation to generation because they're so treasured. They're usually from certain artists that you can tell by the chop that's on the bottom of them. So you can enjoy these teas either with family and friends in a group but it can also lend itself to taking those single quiet moments of contemplation. So although I'm just touching on really quickly a number of different cultures and expressions of taking tea we have chosen to share with you today a glimpse into the Japanese tea ceremony. So cheddo or the way of tea as it is also known is based on Zen Buddhistic principles. Has anybody here ever had cheddo or... Cheddo, do you? A tiny little flower in front. Alright, well this is going to be quiet and please don't take me as somebody representing cheddo because it's... I will tell you now. I've taken actually a few lessons. First you need really good knees so if you don't I'm just a little warning make sure they have that little extra stool for you because they can be a little... time can really stretch out in these particular moments but it's not something... so if you meet somebody who's actually become a team master for cheddo keep in mind that it's not something that you say oh I do it for 10 years, I do it for 20 years and now suddenly I'm a team master it's actually more of a mindset or an attainment in a... more of a philosophical level so it's not that you just do these certain things and then suddenly you become a team master that doesn't actually happen. So if you meet somebody there's a special layer to them that imparts to the T itself. So cheddo is based on Zen Buddhism is a way of actually training the body and the mind and awareness and really being present. It's based on four beautiful principles harmony, respect, purity and tranquility. Sorry I just written as well the Japanese I didn't want to say it because I didn't want to butcher the words but the last word is... is there any Star Wars fans here? Anyway, Jakku is the last word so I'll just leave it at that. So on the last note before we watch a brief film on cheddo there's also three different schools that teach cheddo. The school that we've been with actually since the early beings are our company about 24 years ago is Urosenke and so the one that you're about to see here which is again a very general overview was performed by Urosenke and I'll also mention it took us seven years to actually talk them into being on film. They're very, very nervous about making a mistake is the reason why. So with that being said so hopefully you enjoyed that moment together. Again if you ever have a chance to actually experience cheddo in itself it really is an amazing, I highly, highly recommend it. It's absolutely beautiful. Everything and I say it's a very that was a very brief I don't know if it's an introduction or not because every single thing has layers of meaning to it so from the scroll that you'll see hanging down it'll be it's also in rhythm to the seasons of the year so summer, winter, spring and fall. The poem will be specific the artist could be specific the bowls that they choose are very specific reminiscent so everything actually has a layered meaning behind it so it also don't think that if you go once that you're also going to understand everything because by far it's probably just the very tip of the iceberg. But now as we allow, now slowly allow our minds to wind back up a little playfulness posed down the clock let's transition from the present to the future let us contemplate perhaps this well-known quote from Alice Morris Earl Yesterday's history tomorrow's a mystery today is a gift that's why it's called the present the important reason for at least for ourselves I know that we drink in the past so that when you pause, reflect and learn in the present the time spent in the present really helps us to tap into I think our best possible futures. As our thoughts draft now to the future we pick up our mat of time our tea cup and put it back on the shelf but before we part ways I would like to leave you with one thought for consideration recently a study by no other than Microsoft showed that our human attention span has dropped yes it has dropped from the height of 12 seconds to 8 maybe that doesn't seem like a really big deal but maybe to put it better into context the goldfish if you have a gold your goldfish has a higher attention span than we do now so he has or she has a 9 second attention span so words of warning if you decide to go and have a steering contest with your goldfish you might want to bet on the goldfish so I will end today's portion with a bit of hope we hope that you will give your present some kind consideration before the shiny new future catches your eye for the present offers I think great opportunity and possibilities if you only give it your time thank you well thanks everyone for your wonderful presentations I think the breadth of our presentation showed how looking at these universal concepts of design and time just open up our minds and our bodies to whole new understandings we can look at them in collaboration with one another so I'll start with a question directed Albert so he can join the conversation thank you so understanding that futurists and technology are often inextricably intertwined as a designer how do you view time and how does it shape the user experience how do you hope that user interaction can be changed or guided or even nudged by time well first thank you for having myself here I'm a big fan of Lana's work and Whitney's work and the work of QPQ at M so I'm really fortunate to be here and it's great to be on this panel to talk about time and in essence a lot of work I work on because our team works on designing computer interactions how do you actually interact with information how do you actually pay attention and focus and a lot of the work is really for us at least in technology is actually trying to figure out what not to work on so actually how do you not spend time on things sometimes actually you get inundated with a lot of technology and notifications and a lot of things kind of coming at you like trying to get your attention how do we actually we're thinking a lot more how do we actually create calm technology things that just go away and you should just be able to walk it in room and the information just come to you without you having to hey which button do I need to press how do I sign in how do I sign off is it on my phone is it on my laptop we're really thinking about interaction in a different way and it's all about giving you back time maybe that's another way to think about how we're thinking about interaction that makes sense I think one concept that I really connected everyone's presentation is an idea of ritual so we now what you're saying finding time for yourself and when to interact and not interact with technology technology is so much driving our rhythms of everyday life and Lana you were talking about of course the tea ceremony being this very important meticulously designed ritual with many time honored components and I think Brittany you know one of the things that interests me so much about your practice is not only a historian but as a conservator and the ritualistic practices that you undergo in conserving these works of time as design objects so I was wondering if you all could speak a bit about maybe the relationship between ritual and time and design in your own work I guess I would say mostly there's a lot of tradition and heritage in the work that I do so in fact I would say that there's a ritual in that there's a passing down of information and certainly of knowledge and skill it's not that you can just read about the way to fix something because you know there's certainly information that's available in books and in forums but you actually it's all the little subtleties that you wouldn't be able to get from a book like if someone is holding their breath when they do a certain thing for example with gilding if someone is doing just like leaf gilding you actually can't breathe because the gold is so fine it will float away so you wouldn't know that unless you were working with a master that had been gilding for a long time and the same thing can be said about feathering so when I go to feather a singing bird each of the feathers are about the size of a pin needle they're originally the feathers that were used were hummingbird feathers so these are quite tiny and there's over 100 feathers on each of the tiny birds that are about the size of my pinky and if I exhale carelessly at any moment I can lose all of my feathers and then you know imagine trying to get all of those back and they're obviously quite rare especially those original feathers we want to keep those intact so there's certainly a ritual to how I compose myself when I'm working and the information that I'm getting from those around me and the certain practices that I do are utilized the ethics I utilize in my work to ensure that the work that I do has integrity and that I'm making sure I'm protecting that object for future generations I think on rituals it's something that I've been thinking a lot and the team because rituals are habits I guess like in some ways we all have our daily habits like you wake up with a certain ritual you go to bed with a certain ritual and it's all kind of time related and these ritual kind of forms I would say your relationship with technology sometimes good and sometimes bad and you know being going to bed and you're kind of on your phone and all that bad light it makes it harder for you to sleep so we really think about again how do you actually create behaviors that allows you to get back more of your time to actually feel like hey you're going into your own ritual and it's your time and so it's really hard it's really hard because in some ways we're creating rituals that are trying to take you away from yourself and that is something that's our responsibility as designers actually that is the point of design is to be responsible for the things that we create so that's a lot more of our thinking so all I could really think about because I mean there's all these amazing cultural rituals out there and for ourselves we're I guess feel that it's really about respecting the leaves and ensuring that we're carrying forward like how do we express something that has such a rich history I mean some there's a tea the Great Red Brogue for example that traces back to the original Camellia Sinensis plant which is the tea plant the name to the tea plant which makes your green your black or your oolongs and how do we ensure that the culture is properly represented through the leaves because I mean tea is the second most strong beverage next to water in the world so there's so many cultures in the world that have an association with tea so how do we respect the culture how do we respect the traditions that have gone before us and then honor the leaves and bring them forward I guess make them relevant to people today and so everything when it comes to our master splendor when they look at the leaves I guess they go through their own ritual in a way I'm not one of them so I'm not going to I'll just say that every single component of the leaf is important to them and so it's from the beginning when you first look at the leaves what do they look like do they look like something that's exciting and wonderful and that people are going to get really want to try the teas so are they long leaves are they short leaves are they tippy and this at the ends when they're hand plucked from that to the aroma that you smell blending together the different leaves and then in the cup what does it taste like what does it look like is it bright is it full of life does it have the color that should be reminiscent of a great cup of whether it be oolong or a Japanese green tea and then finally afterwards what do the leaves look like after that they've been tasted as well so it really is an honor we know we feel we're custodians of this journey that's gone on before us and we feel honored to be able to have it in our lives and hopefully share with others so they get excited too is there anyone in the audience who has a question in our last few minutes ritual isn't something that's typically passed down very well through formal education or university studies necessarily it typically deals more with the practice of it and with even apprenticeship of it and so my question is probably more for Lana and Brittany how do you intend to pass down the rituals of which you've spoken to the next generation well I guess I have an intern so I work with my I have an intern so I work with my I have an intern so I work with my somewhat unfortunately it's only during the time that I get my interns from the local watchmaking school generally one of the students will seek me out and come to work in my shop for two years while they're in school about to lose my latest not apprentice but intern he's going to graduate soon and I wish him the best when he goes forward but the kind of work that I do is so tedious and it's it's really so much more than just doing watchmaking or clockmaking since I work with a variety of mechanical objects and I'm also a conservator it took me about it took me nine years in higher education to get to where I am and it wasn't an apprenticeship but I went through craft schools so I did work at the bench during those years and I also worked as a jeweler but I think in order to really hand down my trade somebody would need to come and do in a traditional apprenticeship of you know seven years was was it was seven to ten years was a traditional apprenticeship and it takes a lifetime to master these skills so even now that I'm in my practice I'm still learning every day and I'm quite lucky that I am able to work with some other people in my field that have you know 35 years of experience so I'm technically the young one that's learning now even though I have my education I'm still learning from others that have spent 20 years plus at the bench because there's nothing that replaces that time at the bench my hope is that more people will be interested in the tangible crafts instead of being tangible as we move forward because much of our world is moving towards intangibles and I think that within that we're kind of losing you know as Lana mentioned the research Microsoft did on attention spans we're losing that kind of tactile environment and I think that's definitely something that's essential for us to continue to create and do innovative things because there's so much we can learn from the past and what we've done with our creativity and the tactile things like horology and the problems we were able to solve so hopefully more people will come and maybe I'll get an actual apprentice I have a 10 year old student right now who's learning engine turning so if I can convince him maybe he'll come and be my new intern thank you I mean I completely agree with that you say as well excuse me Brittany about the time I mean we don't well I guess we sort of work at bench we work at a table but and also to your point as well it's about ritual it's not always something that you can be written down per se but it is a passing forward of knowledge precious knowledge that can be so easily lost if we don't tend to it properly so I mean a large one of the founding principles for us like back in 94 was education so it starts first and foremost I mean you know the time you know T wasn't really at the forefront to us in our minds anyway at that time and so a lot large part of what we did had to be founded on education we were doing you know loose T there's huge educational components that if you really want people to have the full experience of it really people need to understand what is exactly that you're drinking and why it is that it's so great or it can be really so great so our master blenders they do have a large portion of education that's being paid forward internally in the company everybody is we train pallets just as a general educational experience because we're hoping that everybody can sort of carry forward this knowledge you know not to this like few it really is meant to be shared but it's it's walking that balance between I think art and science which again is why I think it's it's something that's hard to encapsulate in a book or just you know that two dimensional object it really needs to be something that is hands on and is felt at some level as well I don't know if anybody here has seen the movie like for water for chocolate but you know I think we all in part a little bit of something you can taste it in what it is and I think the same probably could be said for clocks as well as that you can feel it I mean some of the images were just wow I mean oh they were just like unbelievable it's like you feel it in your heart you can feel the heart and soul that went into each of those creations and I know that's the same for ourselves as well and how do you how do you pass that along so it is I think still and I don't know maybe it's something that Albert and his team will address but you know at least for you know it's something how do you pass that along you know we do it human to human as well as obviously written but you know it's a very human to human thing yeah and totally I think that's I think that's a constant struggle when you're working in digital where you know we talk a lot about timeless design I think you know the Benelli his work Massimo's I think his work is so timeless it's still in the New York subway system it's the clock the flip clock the typography and you think about typography in digital type design is actually it's actually a craft and in some ways type design once we went digital I think we're losing a lot of that artistic quality and how do we make sure we retain that I think to us it's been a key area to kind of continue to educate and respect and make sure we move that forward and I think that's something we want to continue to invest in to create those ritual of typography and design that are timeless. Well thanks so much everyone for coming this evening we'd be happy to continue the conversation with you over a cup of tea just outside of the exit of the lecture room so we'll all be around and we'll be happy to continue the conversation with you thanks so much for coming