Clear as a Bell : A sensory and aesthetic history of timekeeping and eco-social relations in Uppsala and the world

Abstract: Methods of timekeeping have changed drastically throughout history and especially in the last century, as has humanity’s relationship to nature. Building upon existing research into the history of clocks and clock-time this study sketches a long-term chronology with a novel environmental, sensory, and aesthetic analysis. The connection between everyday time(keeping) and the environment, as well as the significant role of objects in how we tell the time. The interactions with our surroundings is explored in order to understand the material role of technology, techno-aesthetics, and eco-social cues. The thesis investigates the aesthetic and sensory dimensions of historical timekeeping, particularly with regards to sound and vision. The thesis follows a chronological narrative so that the significant shifts in European timekeeping can be identified at particular moments in history, as well as demonstrating the overall arc of change. It begins with the lead up to the invention of mechanical clocks followed by a case study – conducted using imaginative phenomenology – of an Uppsala student in 1482 interacting with the clock-bell in his local timescape. After sketching the significant inventions and shifts in the proceeding centuries, there is a comparative case study that conducts a phenomenological autoethnography of the author’s timekeeping practices in Uppsala in 2022 and aesthetic analysis of personal clock devices. This seeks to identify what characterises timekeeping in the Anthropocene. Throughout, the thesis compares the experiences of ‘time foraging’ as opposed to ‘self-referential timekeeping’ to explore how different timekeeping affects our relations on an ecological and social scale.