Experimental Clock: Telomere Time

Description

Although universalized time may be a social construct, one clock we cannot escape is our biological clocks. Using universalized time people measure their age in years, but this age does not necessarily align with their biological clock. One way to measure a person’s age based on their biology is through the length of their telomeres. Telomeres are a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences at each end of a chromosome that shorten as a person ages. People of the same age in years may have different telomere lengths, which is why it is often referred to as one’s “real age”. For this assignment, I created an experimental clock which represents a human’s biological age through shortening telomeres with time.

Click here for the link to the p5 editor and sketch.

Design Process

When coming up with ideas for the clock, I wanted to use time that felt personal, something I used to keep time. My first idea was “puppy time”, using my puppy’s bathroom schedule to determine the time of day. I was going to have a sketch of my puppy move across the screen and her position would determine the background and what time of the day the background represents. Next, I thought of “telomere time”, which is less personal, but it is definitely something that I’m aware of. Telomere time keeps time by shortening the telomeres, determining one’s biological age. My third idea was “snooze time”, since getting up without snoozing became near impossible for me during quarantine. For this idea, I would use universalized time, but relative to how long I snooze. The sketch was going to consist of a sleeping person in bed slowly getting up until the user clicks on the screen, snoozing and causing the person to go back to sleep and try to slowly rise again.

"Puppy Time"

"Telomere Time"

"Snooze Time"

For my experimental clock, I decided to create a visual representation of telomeres shortening over time. I started by loading an image of a chromosome, then constructing the telomeres in p5. I wanted these telomeres to almost appear to disintegrate, so I constructed them out of nine identical ellipses at each tip of the chromosome. In order for the telomeres to shorten, as more time passes the ellipses making up the telomeres will peel off at a given time and rate. I used millis() to create different speeds at which the ellipses will peel off and added/subtracted this rate to the position of the ellipses in order to cause them to slowly move offscreen from the sketch, representing how telomeres disintegrate and shorten as time passes. However, I wanted the top layer of the telomere to peel off before the second and third layers since I wanted to show the shortening of the telomeres. I then used if/else conditional statements to determine when the next couple of layers would move. The first layer of ellipses start peeling off immediately when the sketch plays, then the second layer will begin to move once the 2nd ellipse of the first layer reaches a position almost offscreen and the third layer peels off once the 2nd ellipse of the second layer is almost offscreen, creating constant movement while also showing how telomeres slowly lose length as a person ages. I used the same set of rates for each layer to move the position of each ellipse, but for the second and third layers I added some values to the position in addition to the rate to make up for the time passed as recorded by millis() so the ellipse does not immediately jump off the page.

Reflection

Telomere time is a reality for all people on earth and it is not something that can be controlled by any person. Unlike universalized time, it is unique to my body and everyone has their own telomere time occurring inside of them. One of the most fascinating features of telomere shortening is that it can be impacted by our actions. Studies have shown that healthy lifestyle choices can actually slow the process of telomere shortening, which means that I can have some level of agency in how my body ages and keeps time, but no one else can affect my internal biological clock. This experimental clock assignment has definitely made me more aware of the fact that you ultimately can control your own time and you do not necessarily have to follow anyone else’s timekeeping unit when it comes to your own body.

Through completing this assignment, I learned more about incorporating movement into design by using time to change the sketch. It creates something much more visually intriguing. I also thought about how my design is grounded in reality in an almost frightening way, reminding people of their own mortality. Although this was not my original intention, I do believe that it makes looking at my sketch more enticing and evocative. I also want to consider how knowing exactly what this sketch represents makes it much more interesting to look at, that this isn’t simply an x-shape with a bunch of ellipses at the end moving offscreen one by one, but rather a visual representation of a person’s biological clock. This made me go back to my sketch and add more visual cues that inform the person who sees this what they are supposed to be looking at, so I decided to add images of DNA, a well known structure related to biology, and hope that someone viewing this sketch will already have an idea of what it represents without looking at the description.