Mechanical Time and Body Time

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“In this world, there are two times. The mechanical time and the body time. The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum that swings back and forth. The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay.”

—Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams, 1992

Chapel 2046 creates a space for exchange between two temporal worlds. In mechanical time, life follows a strict routine: waking at 7, lunch at noon, and a 40-hour work week. In body time, people eat when hungry, sleep when tired, and flow according to desire.

The chapel’s layout—a sequence of chapel, hallway, and bathhouse along a rigid boundary—symbolizes mechanical time’s repetition, with columns spaced for two-second strides. Inside, fluid forms embody body time’s spontaneity. A flexible brick structure encourages gradual building over time, showing how these opposing temporalities coexist.

In the comic, Ellie attends her brother’s wedding to a partner from mechanical time. Over time, Chapel 2046 becomes neither fully inside nor outside, inviting ambivalence as clarity blurs, and allowing a new perception of time and space to emerge.

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