As a young international student, I live across time zones. Family, friends and people I care about are scattered across the world. The world’s time zones are standardized, but behind that is the fact that actually everyone carries a private time zone—unaligned, unaccelerated and unshareable.
Time zones exist because the Earth rotates, and humans created them to coordinate daily life across different places. But if we strip away this human system, what remains is the angle between each person and the Sun—which is always different. In that sense, everyone carries their own time zone.
Based on prime meridian as reference, I calculated the solar hour angle for each spot where people important to me live, replacing conventional time with shifting degrees. Time is no longer split into zones, hours or days. We all move around the Sun at the same speed, yet each of us holds a unique coordinate— and therefore, a unique ‘time zone’.
I collected the precise coordinates of my friends around the world and invited them to leave one sound sample every hour on the same day. I didn’t interfere in their recording process and had no idea what they would offer. If they missed an hour, silence remained—like moments when we slip out of each other’s lives. Some place is marked but hold no recordings at all— like missing someone in silence, yet being unable to reach out.
The audience can turn a physical clock hand like a record player to align themselves with a place at a moment. Sometimes they hear a fragment sound at that place from that hour, sometimes only absence—just like our attempts to connect may not always work.
Everyone has their own life— a cruel and beautiful fact. We move through fragmented time, seeking, waiting and approaching. Our connections are occasional, fragile, and thus precious. The program is built through P5.js. Physical parts use Arduino. Concrete is built based on 3D-print mold. Finally the sketch from P5.js is projected onto the concrete.