This is a project from foundation year for Paula Gaetano-Adi's design class.

"Perform. Repeat. Record
In this assignment you have to perform an action for a duration of 35 hours in one week.  Using the in-class exercises, readings, and lectures as inspiration, you will have to design and enact a simple performance piece that consists in the repeatedly execution of a single task. Also you are required to design a system for recording your iterative task and the passing of time. "

(This is part 1 of a larger unit. The description of the unit is in the description box on the right)

I understood this project as the visualization of time. Instead of doing a active action with body parts, I wanted to use something that happens naturally in my body: heat. I chose to melt m&m's with my body heat and take a picture every hour. I was inspired when I found a pack of m&m's melted in my pocket. As a experimentation, I wanted to see if different parts of my body melt the m&m's with different speed, so I hand-sawed six pocked on different parts of a white t-shirt, put m&m's in each pocket, wore the t-shirt, and melted the m&m's with my body heat. In order to keep my body temperature on the m&m's, I wore a thick down jacket when ever I was doing this project. 

A self-reflection after the project:

As I spent more and more time wearing this shirt, I found out that this is project is not only about what time can do on the object itself, but also what time can do on me mentally and physically, so I want to share my failures, challenges, and what I gain from these hours I spent my life with m&m's.

Failure: In the beginning, when the t-shirt was still white, every hour make a huge different, but when the darkness got to a certain point, the shirt stopped taking more color from the chocolate, so the more hours, the less changes every hour. As time passed, the pictures in the later part of the project do not have a strong evidence of passing of time. 

Challenge:

In the beginning, I planed to do the whole project in my room and use it as a self- reflection time; however, in the end of the week, because of the lack of time, I was forced to wear the shirt when I was working on my drawing and when I spent time with people. Either way, it was very challenging for me. 

When I did the project in my room, I tried to avoid contact with people. I felt extremely lonely when I sat in my room alone too long. 

The experience was extremely frustrating when I wore the shirt in public and did other works with it. First, it made me very uncomfortable to do this in front of people. I heard people said "Do you smell something like chocolate?" for five times in a day. My friend can smell strong chocolate from far away before I entered the room. Several of my friend refused me entering their room because the smell was too strong. When I took of the down jacket and took picture of myself every hour, people looked at me with confusion. It made me uncomfortable when so many people turned their head around and looked at me. Second, doing this project is physically challenging for myself. After smelling the strong sweet smell of the m&m's, I felt nausea. I could not lower my body too much, or the chocolate would fall out of the pockets. I sweated a lot because I had to keep down jacket on even in a room with the heater. The oily based ingredient in m&m's sticked to my skin and was hard to wash off. My room, my body, and my cloths had a smell of a mixture of sweat and chocolate for the whole week. My mood went down as my body was not comfortable.

My gain:

Even though, it was really challenging, it was a very good experiment for me. I had chance to force myself to do something I do not like continuously for a very long period of time. I experienced the struggle of confronting my own physically and mentally challenge, and also doing something without affected by other people's judges and views. I also pay more attention to time. I checked the clock a lot often because I needed to take picture every hour. 

Everything in our lives now is based on time. However, time is only a measurement unit that is made by human beings. We cannot usually touch time or feel time unless we are in a hurry. This project made me feel the evidence of time pass so directly visually, mentally, and physically. It was a feeling that I had never experienced before.