Streetclock

‘Design a new clock’ (Royal College of Art brief)

Time is not just something that exists on our mobile phones, digital watches and in our diaries. Time is physical, tangible, cosmological; it is not just a theory of the mind. Streetclock actively encourages people to consider the idea of time before digital technologies became pervasive.

Streetclock is a synthesis of simple ideas: shadows cast by street furniture over urban landscapes are measured in relation to painted road markings.

Heavily referencing sundials, the road markings denote specific times, but at irregular intervals, unlike the uniform markings on a clock-face. Rather than on the hour, the project preserves incidental times such as 10:19 or 5:02. Also, the ‘shadow-lines’, and therefore the reading of time, are distorted by pedestrians.

Like Feral London and 3eyes' Orange project, Streetclock explores the reclamation of urban territories and the way in which these physical and metaphysical spaces can be re-appropriated for, and by, their inhabitants. Streetclock draws on the aesthetic and temporal issues that saturate public spaces.

Click the following links to learn more about sundials, and how to make your own… hartrao.ac.za lmsal.com all-science-fair-projects.com jgiesen.de kids.msfc.nasa.gov