In this speculative object, time is rendered fragile—material, even mortal. What if time decayed? This timepiece doesn’t count seconds; it crumbles through them. Like a geologic formation wearing away or a pastry collapsing into dust, it doesn’t just mark time—it loses it. This is not simply a metaphor. The work aligns with recent movements in temporal design—an emerging discipline that considers how we design with, through, and against time (Mazé & Redström, 2005). Rather than measuring time as a static constant, this piece materializes temporality. It is designed to fail, fracture, and eventually cease—just like everything else. The object—a circular form segmented like a pie chart—presents its hours as wedges of compressed matter. But unlike standard timekeeping tools that promise precision, durability, and permanence, this one collapses. On one side, it remains clean and whole; on the other, it has begun to crumble, as if the past is eroding and the future cannot be held. This visual metaphor finds resonance in entropic architecture and decay aesthetics, such as the work of Gordon Matta-Clark and Anselm Kiefer, where destruction is not failure but revelation. It asks: what if temporality wasn’t linear, but degradative? What if time could rot? Philosophically, this object sits comfortably within New Materialism, particularly in the writings of Jane Bennett (2010), where material is not inert, but vibrant—alive, changing, and expressive. Time, often seen as abstract and immaterial, becomes here a crumbling thing. It breaks. It piles. It becomes debris. It also speaks to an ecological consciousness. As we confront geological time through the Anthropocene, we must grapple with cycles of decay and collapse, not as disasters, but as inevitable processes. This clock doesn't offer continuity—it offers erosion. Functionally, the design breaks the contract of the clock. We rely on clocks for structure, regularity, and certainty. But this one reminds us of impermanence. It un-chronologizes. It refuses utility in favor of confrontation. It does not help you be on time—it shows you that time cannot be held at all. Aesthetically, it sits within a new language of speculative artifacts—objects that appear familiar but behave otherwise. Like the experimental clocks of Maarten Baas (Real Time) or the temporal objects in Dunne & Raby’s Critical Design framework, this piece is not just a clock—it is a commentary. As it crumbles, we are left with questions: • What is the value of time that leaves no trace? • Can erosion be a form of measurement? • What happens when our tools of orientation themselves become lost? What if time decayed? Perhaps it already does—we just needed a design to show it. --------------------------------------------------References • Mazé, R., & Redström, J. (2005). Form and the Computational Object. Digital Creativity, 16(1), 7–18. • Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Duke University Press. • Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. MIT Press. • Matta-Clark, G. (2007). You Are the Measure. Whitney Museum of American Art. • Baas, M. (2009). Real Time: Clocks by Maarten Baas. Carpenters Workshop Gallery.