Assignment

Timekeeper Design Hunt: Clocks are cool! There are so many fabulous examples of artists working with time, historical timepieces, astronomical equipment, and more. Collect and post eight “timekeepers” you love. These could be watches or clocks you like; time-based art installations you’ve experienced; astronomical historical sites; etc. Come prepared to talk about one or two in particular during discussion in class next week. Questions: Collective Miro board? Or other way to share visual inspiration?

• Reading
  • Scan the Time materials on https://fddrsn.net/teaching/time, especially the Resources [Bibliography, Hardware, and Software], Ideas, and Gallery. Come with questions.
  • Griffiths excerpt (this document contains an excerpt from her book and a transcription of an interview)
  • Brand, Kairos and Chronos

1. Phil in the Circle - “Goodbye Art” I grew up watching this artist on Youtube, Phil in the Circle, who performed a year-long series called “Goodbye Art,” where each art piece was temporary and destroyed at the end, either by natural causes or with force. This whole series to me is an interesting form of time-based art, and I remember watching them feeling a sense of sadness and longing at the impermanence of it all. An example I embedded here is a portrait done with candles being lit:

https://youtu.be/y7lpEdK_Un8?si=dMArRUg0WTv84sHP&t=67

1. Traintrackr PCBs This custom PCB LED display shows the current location of trains in the NYC subway. This company also sells different boards for a few different cities. I’m a sucker for more artfully designed PCBs, since most of them are so engineering/efficiency driven (to be as small as possible). It’s an interesting way to see how the trains move over time, and while I don’t own one, I assume it must be fun to watch the difference in number of lights at night vs. during the day.

1. Maarten Baas - “The Man in the Clock” I saw this art piece when walking around Schiphol Airport during a layover one summer. I had been sitting nearby enjoying a snack and coffee, and at first, in my peripheral vision, I really thought there was a person inside doing cleaning. After sitting for 10-15 minutes and noticing that the hands kept getting erased and redrawn, I finally understood that it was actually a beautiful art piece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u1wCzby14o&ab_channel=IvyCottageIndustries

1. Sarah Sze - “Timelapse” This exhibition was at the Guggenheim this year, and it just closed a couple weeks ago. Inside the museum, it was a series of delicately placed installations. Outside, there was a river of images projected on the building’s exterior every evening, in addition to a live projection of the moon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bUJTDBBaRI&ab_channel=VernissageTV

1. Jen Lewin - “The Aurora” Jen is an ITP alum and makes large-scale LED sculptures and installations. She did this piece for the Minneapolis airport which changes color/animation based on the current season and weather in that city. This is an interesting concept to me because of the possibility that every time a traveller sees it in their commute, it may show a different color or animation.

https://www.jenlewinstudio.com/portfolio/the-aurora/

1. Horloge Astronomique, Lyon https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/astronomical-clock-of-lyon I traveled to Lyon this summer, where I saw this astronomical clock in the Cathédrale Saint-Jean. It’s not currently working, but it is one of the oldest in Europe (earliest documented in 1383). I loved the picture I took (on the left) where you can see the dates up until 2019. This was interesting to me because I like imagining the artisans making this in the 14th century writing the year 2019, with very little concept of how far ahead in time that is.