Hack #5

In this Hack, I chose to return to Hack#3, which is the real timing clock I built in Minecraft. In the original version, my goal is to precisely introduce real time into the game world through technical means, thereby breaking the boundary between the two. This clock converts the changes of each second into digital signals through redstone circuits and presents them visually on the screen in the game. This approach reduces “time” to a highly computable and continuously advancing mechanism, enabling the game world to structurally simulate the time of reality.

But it was precisely during the process of using this device that I gradually realized its expressive potential was still confined within a framework of “technical synchronization”. Players do not have a particularly profound perception of this time number that changes second by second. Instead, it is more like “reading data” rather than “experiencing time”. Therefore, in the Beta version, I attempted to shift the focus from “controlling time” to “feeling time”, no longer relying on precise scales, but rather constructing a time experience that is closer to human perception through unstable and dissipative smoke.

The most notable manifestation of this transformation was that I used redstone to ignite the straw, allowing the smoke produced by the burning straw to form numbers in the air. Because the generation of smoke is delayed and its existence itself is brief and vague, this smoke clock can no longer be as precise to the second as before. It is no longer a “precise device”, but a “visual moment”.  One has to gaze at it, wait for it, watch it slowly emerge and disperse with the wind. This experience is closer to our true perception of time in the game: not being aware of the progress of time until the smoke has dissipated, day and night alternate, and the player suddenly realizes that they have been in it for a long time. Compared with clear figures, this untouchable and vanishing smoke is more like a metaphor for the experience of time itself.

The most fundamental difference from the original project is not only the change in the presentation method, but also the shift in the conceptual focus: I no longer attempt to make the game “imitate reality”, but instead demonstrate the coexistence and tension of the two time mechanisms through two parallel smoke clocks. One shows the real time and the other shows the game time within Minecraft. This just a position constitutes an experience structure, allowing players to passively perceive the conflict between the two temporal logics as they travel through the space. Real time relies on local area network synchronization and requires additional plugins to connect to the system time for accurate operation, while game time is rooted in Minecraft’s internal day-night mechanism and always progresses at its own pace. This “external access” in reality instead makes real time seem out of place in the game and also reveals the heterogeneity and intrusiveness of real time in the virtual space.

Behind this concept reconstruction, I referred to multiple theoretical frameworks. The concept of “continuous time” proposed by Henri Bergson is one of the theoretical fulcrums for my current transformation. Bergson defined scientific time as a quantifiable and divisible unit of scale, while understanding conscious time as an immeasurable and continuously flowing “continuity”. The smoke clock embodies precisely the latter: it is not a rhythmic advancement but an immersive experience, an existence that is only realized in the process of dissipation.

I also encountered many technical difficulties during the progress. For example, the realization of real time relies on local area network plugins and precise Tick control, while the smoke effect is difficult to predict and is easily affected by wind direction and spatial interference. However, in a certain sense, these “technical difficulties” also precisely constitute the contradiction that this project intends to convey: the control of time is always limited. The more technology attempts to precisely express time, the more it will expose its instability and imperceptibility. Ultimately, the smoke clock is not a tool for answering questions about time, but a device that constantly poses questions. It is both a sensory experience and a philosophical metaphor: Do we only realize that time is flowing around us when it is about to disappear and the smoke rises and then dissipates? Perhaps, in the process of immersing ourselves in the game world, are we experiencing the escape of time or another continuation of the rules of reality?