what's the walking speed of your city?

I came across an interesting article by the NewScientist which discusses the "walking speed" of some of the top cities of the world. People from 32 countries were timed walking a length of 18m. To my surprise, London is ranked at top 12 only, at 12.17secs. ... Hong Kong wasn't even a candidate but I believe it would've made a tie with Taipei at number 23, with 14secs.

While writing my dissertation, I've tried to retrace my roots in my interest in the topic of "Time". Having briefly discussed this during one of the mentoring sessions last term, I realized that my sensitivity to Time probably originated from having lived in two different countries. Having been away from Hong Kong for the past 3 years (although with visits back home for 6-10 weeks/year), I've really come to notice the difference in speed in different cultures.

London may have the 12th fastest walking pace in the world, but it doesn't necessarily mean the city itself functions at the same rate. In fact, I realized that my walking pace does increase in London compared to when I'm in Hong Kong. And yet I still feel that Hong Kong functions so much faster. Whether it is transportation, service or simply immediate gratification of your demands... Hong Kong is truly unbeatable!

(original article on "walking speed":
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/labels/walk.html)

roses are red, violets are blue..

have been trying to explore ways of bringing time to a standstill in our physical world. so as a starting point, i bought a bouquet of white roses and painted them in resin to record each stage of their growth.

mixed feelings about the outcome so far.. the resin took a while to dry out completely, which i suspect has caused the roses themselves to wilt faster than the resin could "freeze" them in time. so some of the roses do look more dead than they do alive.. which wasn't what i was hoping for!

i do think though this unexpected result isn't entirely disappointing. i suppose then it in a way shows how time that isnt captured fast enough just dies. very literally.


also i found the resin a bit too thickly painted on. i don't really like that kind of aesthetic quality it creates as it feels very artificial and also it's a bit to shiny for my liking. so taking these points on board, i've made a few alterations of my "freezing" process:


the roses will now be submerged in the vase of water as opposed to hung and dried in mid-air. perhaps then while the resin is drying on it, the flower can still breath and is alive. the resin coating is also thinner..