Design Map · Eindhoven
The Decay of Time
Graduation project by Dora Ramljak at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
‘The Decay of Time’ begins with a paradox: radioactive isotopes released by atmospheric nuclear weapons testing became residues of Cold War violence and tools for measuring seawater’s movement and age. Dispersed through the oceans, they enabled oceanographers to trace thermohaline circulation, the movement of seawater around the planet over centuries, driven by differences in density caused by temperature and salinity. The installation materialises this relationship in a self-sustaining vessel of seawater that recreates thermohaline circulation. Sensors translate changing water conditions into a two-channel film and soundscape, in which a swimmer’s movements — inspired by the designer’s embodied research in the Adriatic Sea — become entangled with oceanic rhythms and scientific measurement. The project explores how planetary time is not simply measured but produced through scientific instruments shaped by histories of militarisation. By bringing embodied knowledge into dialogue with these infrastructures, it traces how those histories continue to circulate through matter and measurement.