Writing my memory was first of all a time dedicated to a long reflection on the subject of my choice ... it could help and strengthen the direction I would choose to take for my future.
Before determining the theme of my research I was tempted by different horizons, however, words came back and obsessed my thoughts: "life, fast, speed! "
It was decided, searching through these words, and through the strange and complex feeling that invaded me. A feeling mixed with attraction, excitement, energy, passion, curiosity and surprise, but also anxiety, danger, helplessness, rejection, refusal and loneliness.
"The speed" ... I would like to remind you that the speed differs according to the beings, the animals, the physical and chemical phenomena ... It is obvious that the speed of the light is in no way comparable to that of the snail, if this n Their speed is calculated with respect to the time elapsed in the path from point A to point B. But the speed is not only calculated with respect to a path; it concerns any action taken in a given time.
I have the feeling that things are too numerous, or go too fast, and that I certainly have trouble following. An abundance of information, events, too many objects, products, music, movies, images. And all arriving simultaneously, so that I feel like I'm running out of time in the face of this avalanche. A feeling of attack making me oppressed and at the same time dependent on change, zapping and novelty. Paradoxically, speed is as bad for me as intoxicating, a phenomenon that could almost be called a drug as it leads to my intense excitement as my chronic and frenetic agitation. Unwanted to always have new things to see, to do, and to be able to consume them more and more quickly.
My subject seemed to me as vague as it was vast: how to treat something that I had difficulty grasping, something related to the time I seemed to be lacking, and the quantity of which I seemed to be stifled. Speed was the key word, this speed being subjective, but also objective, linked to my impression of haste, but also to real progress and to an ever more massive and rapid production. I began to undertake research in this direction. I discovered a large amount of philosophical, anthropological and sociological writings related to time, speed, its acceleration, but also to the rhythm of life, to progress, to the technological revolution.
From then on, I understood that I was far from being alone in feeling an "acceleration of time", that reassuring me and comforting me in the choice of my subject. I started in this direction.
In today's society of Western and non-Western developed countries, more and more people share the feeling of being out of breath, stressed, overworked or overwhelmed. This feeling is explained by a lifestyle that continues to evolve for better and for worse. The acceleration of history and the progress that it entails and generates are exponential: we are in a progressive era, where speed reigns. My project is not to accuse acceleration, to blame progress, or to apologize for slowness. I am as excited and admiring of some acceleration bias as it is an accuser for others, and that is probably logical since nothing stands out from its advantages or disadvantages, but evolves in a multitude of nuances, that I would try to deal with topics that interest me and concern me.
I was born in 1990, in Paris: One year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, thirty-one years after the first step on the moon, and ten years after the beginnings of the internet in html.
I was born a short time ago, and yet enough time for me to see a significant change between the world of my childhood and the one in which I evolve today. I belong to a generation born in the past, but living in the future, the generation born during the technological and tele-communicative revolution.
My world is first my apartment, my neighborhood, my school, my city, but also my country, my planet. All these environments have changed, and change constantly. We are talking about evolution and progress, which rhymes today with acceleration: What is fast progressing, what is slow regress said one. An acceleration including the pace of life and stress that causes. But also an increase in possibilities of all kinds: an increase in choices.
Time is quantified by the number of actions we can perform. The more actions we have to perform in a given time, the shorter the time, the more time seems to be lacking. It is in this sense that I speak of feeling of acceleration, and that, of course, time is neither stretchable nor retractable. The acceleration of history as the acceleration of our lives is born from the accumulation of actions that succeed one another. I feel claustrophobic myself in a world that is more and more open.
Today I consider myself more fortunate than my parents and grandparents, my life being much more comfortably organized. I have access to everything right now. The flip side of this chance is that this comfortable world is pressing me, pressurizing me, drowning me.
We are called the zapping generation for good reason, but this zapping comes from an overload of information and the indecision it provokes.
I wanted to put words on this sense of acceleration and try to explain its origin.
The first part will focus on the origins of the speed we know today. Historically, when and how have the foundations of our era been built and for what reasons. I would mention only the beginning, my goal not to list the technologies present today, but rather to know what are the triggers.
How to explain this desire in the man to progress, to master or even to anticipate its evolution or in other words its future. How does man weave the meshes of his own trap by wanting to challenge the laws of nature to "progress" more and faster.
What is the purpose of speeding up, of saving time or especially not to lose it and why this recurring need in humans? These are the questions I would try to answer in the second part of this memoir.
In a second time I would look at the facts and misdeeds that this speed on the man.
For several years, sociologists and philosophers have been talking about "accelerating history".
What are the results of this acceleration in our way of life? What changes does this acceleration generate in the population, in their behavior, their well-being, their desires?
The third part will revolve around speed in creation.
As a future designer, the question of time often comes to me. The time for reflection, drawing, organization, creation, fabrication ... But also the time to "do nothing", to let oneself think, to think about other things, to inspire oneself, to go see elsewhere. How does a creative or creative behave in the face of the speed that is often required?
Today we have means of production, technological tools that promote a speed of creation, of production. Does this facility to go fast distort the answer of the creative?
How do artists and creators position themselves against speed?
I will present later new tactics designers. What will be the solutions for tomorrow, to create smarter, and more ecologically.
It seems to me essential to understand the world in which I evolve, to be able to live serenely, or, in a utopian way, to change what disturbs me there. These questions seemed to me essential.
It may be an unusual subject for the Objet Design student that I am, and yet it would allow me to position myself, to understand myself, to know what attracts me or pushes me away. It was in a personal research that I wanted to write about it, not knowing where the outcome of this memoir would lead me, but being certain that the subject was inevitable for me: an obviousness. I would find my pace, my speed: a little, a lot, passionately, not at all, we'll see ... I have time.
