Creating a
human-centred time unit
Measuring lifetime in width, not length
Hi,
I'm Gioia
Human-centred designer & unorthodox thinker
I'm a human centred designer in the financial industry for large corporates and institutions.
In one of the most digitalized countries in the world, Denmark.
Growing up in Italy, I studied Classical subjects: Latin, Philosophy and Literature. I was captured by the timeless humanistic values from ancient philosophers, still relevant today. However, all was past-based and only business design made me think bigger than myself.
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I invested in my future by studying Economics in Denmark and China, provoking business thinking starting from people's problems and desires.
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Now, I am driving and designing a time revolution. Join me.
Perception of Time
Before being inspired by Space, Ihad for many years doubt the wide-spread adoption of the solar calendar as a measuring unit. I never understood why people were making new year’s resolutions in December.
What was changing between December and January, to also change people's motivation?
It was still the same winter season, the same school year, the same volleyball tournament season.
As humans, our behaviour is influenced by the context, the weather and the society we live in.
We have calendars to measure that. We have Gregorian calendars, lunar calendar, school calendars, financial calendars.
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But what if we looked at how we perceive time by the experiences we’ve had?
Well, in that case we need have a human-centred calendar: a calendar that measures our perception of time.
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Time is a mental construct,
We measure it by the things we remember.
Our memories.
Our first kiss.
Graduating from university.
The passing of a family member.
Our first house.
Why do we measure life through a linear timeline,
rather than a non-linear width according to how intensly we experience life?
The problem is that people are researching how to extend life, when instead it should be widened.
There is plenty of research on how to extend life for longevity, but there is little research on widening life for amplevity: the ability to live life in greater width.
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For this reason, I started by creating a prototype.
Then, created a new time unit.
A human-centred time unit: wide time.
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Focused on propelling the perception of time by creating new experiences.
With this human-centred calendar, we are on a mission to widen life, to improve amplevity: living in width.
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We measure the width of life, not the length.
Advancing on Earth,
by learning from Space
Space-time relativity
Einstein theorized that time goes slower, the closer to a strong gravitational field.
This was a paradigm shift in understanding how time was measured. It went against the long-established Newton’s law.
Even though the effect is too small to detect with human senses, the understanding of such concept, and the ability to measure it and demonstrate it visually has revolutionized the world.
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Time for astronauts
Astronauts living in space have a home that is just a laboratory. Sterile. Cables. Machines.
There is no horizon. No natural light. No gravity. No circadian rhythms. It is impossible to get a sense of time.
Astronauts follow clocks to communicate with the mission control centre, but as time passes on long-term mission astronauts detach more and create their own points of reference to refer to time, e.g. "before the toilet broke", "after the toilet broke" (yes, a broken toilet in space becomes a huge problem)
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Overview effect
Astronauts of past missions commonly confirmed the experience of the "overview effect": a profound cognitive shift in astronauts’ perception of themselves and view on life, resulting from the viewing Earth from orbit or the moon, looking extremely fragile while balancing in the dark void of space and yet clearly displaying how the whole ecosystem is interlinked.
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Collaborations & Exploration
Want to collaborate?
Get in touch and join us in making a long lasting time-impact.