Measured Time
On Time
Set against Sydney Observatory’s timeless backdrop, On Time is a Powerhouse series exploring the philosophy of time. Across four conversations journalist Rachael Hocking engages with leading thinkers to examine how time governs our world by measuring moments, defining cycles and shaping our deepest sense of self.
‘Growing up in the West and being from a Muslim background in Pakistan, our concept of time, the way we perceive time, has always been linear. But now that I'm learning about Dharmic faiths like Hinduism, Buddhism, it’s often this discussion of cyclical time.’
Measured Time
Our experience of time is anything but uniform and is something we can experience in profoundly different ways. In this conversation on Measured Time with philosopher Kristie Miller and content creator Aslan Pahari we examine how different beings perceive time.
We explore the patterns through which humans make sense of time, and how cultures develop different ways of orienting themselves in relation to past and future. We trace how memory and imagination work together and how our preferences toward what has been or what is coming quietly shape the choices we make every day.
Featuring Speakers
‘Unsurprisingly, people tend to prefer to have pleasant stuff temporally close and unpleasant stuff temporally far and animals very strongly show that preference too.’
Photography Commission
Photographer Kai Wasikowski was commissioned by Powerhouse to produce a series of portraits of the On Time program speakers and a photographic study of Sydney Observatory, situating these contemporary voices within a site shaped by science, timekeeping and colonial history.
About Photographer
Kai Wasikowski is an artist working across photography, video and sculpture, based on Gadigal Land / Sydney, Australia. His practice is informed by a familial connection to landscape photography and environmental conservation and critically examines how colonial ways of seeing shape ideas of land, resources, possession and belonging.
