24 Hours at Midnight, 2016

Image

One white blanco clock moving counter clock wise. Hour and minute indicators are absent. Only two indicators for seconds revolve on opposite sides. One indicator with a small pencil, the other with a small eraser. The clock holds still on the International Date Line (+12) and is continuously moving through 24 timezones. Correspondent cities are specified and scrolling on a small ascii display screen.

Intent

The +12 timezone (midnight) is called the International Date Line, which moves the current date from one day to the next. The International Date Line (IDL) is an imaginary line of navigation on the surface of the Earth that runs from the north pole to the south pole and passes through the middle of the Pacific Ocean, roughly following the 180° line of longitude but deviating to pass around some territories and island groups.

The earth revolves in 24 hours in 24 timezones, from the west towards the east, counterclockwise viewed from its axis. The clock works in sync with the rotation of the earth and is drawing and erasing where time stands still. This work can be seen as a meditation on the nature of time and on ways of representing its fleeting nature.

Both poles of the metaphysical experience - the world as a whole and individual excistence - are linked in a paradox since you are caught by the world at large, just because the whole is slipping. The world is present where it withdraws, it opens in its emptiness. This common feeling of emptiness we know as an everyday experience yet we cover this emptiness almost immediately over and over again. How do we, in total absence of every possible content, experience time?'

(subtracted from 'The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics - World, Finitude, Solitude' by Martin Heidegger)