The Slow Food Movement was created in contrast to fast food. Now, we have the Slow Design Movement with products that slow down your pace and allow the user to be more connected to the sensory world. Designed by artist Lorenz Potthast, the Decelerator Helmet does just this.
The Decelerator Helmet is a experimental approach for dealing with our fast moving society. The sense of vision is consigned to an apparatus which allows the user a perception of the world in slow motion.
The Decelerator Helmet – A slow motion for Real Life from Lorenz Potthast on Vimeo.
Der Entschleunigerhelm – Zeitlupe fürs echte Leben, as it is named in German, was created at University of Art in Bremen, Germany (hfk-bremen.de/).
In a increasingly hectic, overstimulated and restless environment are the calls for deceleration omnipresent. The inconceivably amount of information and influences in our everyday lives leads in many cases to an excessive demand.The idea to decouple the personal perception from the natural timing enables the user to become aware of his own time.
In the inside of the helmet the video-signal of a camera is processed by a small computer. The slowed-down images are displayed right before the user’s eyes via a head-mounted display and are simultaneously shown on a monitor on the outside.
The helmet has three different modes which can be selected by a remote control:
In the auto-mode time is slowed down automatically and re-accelerated after a defined interval. The press-mode allows the specific deceleration of time. In the scroll-mode the user can completely control the speed of the elapsing of time.
The Decelerator gives the user the possibility to reflect about the flow of time in general and about the relation between sensory perception, environment and corporality in particular. Also it dramatically visualizes how slowing down can potentially cause a loss of the present.