The Time class inspires me to adapt a clock that can have side effect on other events. That clock will be managed by the escapement mechanism and it drives a pecking-like automaton that swings a pointer with a rubber tip, touching the phone screen at uniform interval of time, at just before the phone fully dim out to darkness. If the pendulum goes out of time, the phone will no longer be in sync with the ideal dimming-prevention interval.

Poem

The poem that I picked is "lighght" by Aram Saroyan. The title is "lighght" and the content is "lighght", written in the middle of the paper. The minimalist poem is a defiance and a challenge towards the notion that poem must be read, or taking up a significant time to finish reading it. “‘lighght’ is something you see rather than read…. Even a five-word poem has a beginning, middle, and end. A one-word poem doesn’t. You can see it all at once.”", as Poetry Foundation noted. As a poem, it ironically does not require (as much) time on your attention. It also

The extra "gh" also creates visual stutter (Unusual Poetry), in a way it may typographically mimics the flickering of light. The word becomes something else other than the word "light", but it becomes an object of itself. The unusual spelling invites readers to pause and reconsider how language anomaly can paradoxically removes readers from the connotation of the semantics meaning, invite them to experience the form of the word and probe readers to see the relationship of the word form with the real life object it refers to.

Similarly, in my project, I'll be taking the screen light from our digital phone. Catching the phone just before it fully dim out to darkness, touching it to revive it back to full brightness, it is a simile to the stutter in the "lighght" poem. It also invites audience to experience the presence of the light on the digital phone, without the light, is our phone still a phone?

After some time, the pendulum may slow down and unsync out of time. I think it'll be interesting to see how the screen light degrades from a controlled state of "lighght" to eventually "ligh gh gh t", with the space being the darkness state.

Technical Description

The automation of the pointer with a rubber tip that taps the area on the phone screen where the camera capture button is at, will be made possible by a set of gears connected to a slider that holds and moves a pointer back and forth. Its control will be programmed to be uniform in time using the escapement mechanism. A pendulum that swings regularly is attached to a gear, that gear is attached with a shaft to the gear that rotates on the rack, and at the end of the rack a phone holder is attached to it. This creates a transfer of movement from the pendulum to the rack, a transfer of timekeeping command to the camera movement. I have not decided the specific interval of time for the pendulum swing. Now that is for the “programmed” or automaton part, which is handled by time.

For the camera part, we are going to use iPhone 14 Pro camera as this is the one most accessible to me right now. The phone shall be facing the audience (selfie mode) in order to show the camera preview.

The escapement will not be sufficient to move the piston back and forward (for 1 touching motion) in 1 tick. I think we should reserve 60 ticks that will result in 1 piston back-and-forth motion.

* 60 ticks -> touch every 1 minute (60 s)

* Think about the gear ratio!

Mechanism Overview

1. Pecking mechanism -> a pen holder is put at the front of the rack. As the smaller gear rotates, it will move the slider linearly and does create a back-and-forth motion on the pen holder. The pecking mechanism gear group should be able to translate 1 tick of the escapement into a complete cycle of back-and-forth motion. The question is, how can i make the energy from 1 tick from the escapement to the end gear to rotate enough so that it can push the piston back and forth? Do I need a Compound Gear or Geneva mechanism to expand the 1 tick into a larger rotation in the end gear? https://www.instagram.com/reels/DXo3WjiCHvt/

1. Escapement mechanism (pendulum, pallet & escape wheel) on the pinion side, connected with a rotating shaft to the pinion

Diagram

Materials

Chipboard

Expectations

I expect to accomplish the linear and escapement mechanism, not sure if i can include the capture mechanism before the deadline. If it is not able to be included in the deadline, the human can follow the phone and touch the capture button manually.

Future Work

It may be interesting to combine this with human intervention, perhaps to move the phone laterally (check my previous post, i abandoned it because the idea is too risky for 3 week work with my current skills).

Inspiration

Automated scroll farming on phone - what is the difference of using bot vs human to scroll? What value do we gain or lose with both?

Fingers by Nik Ramage. An eternally tapping mechanical hand that is made to mirror the human hand movement next to it.

Infinite Scroll by Tjep

And me! I make long panorama fashion photography.