Friday, May 2, 2008

What time is it? Well, time first began in...

Hans Tan Studio wants to tell you what time it is in as many words as possible on a sign that displays the time, offering a visual interpretation of a clock in paragraph form...all of which, at quarter till three (you'd think writing a repetitive, redundant, run-on, redundant sentence would be fairly easy, but you'd be surprised).

This work, Idea of a Clock II, is a literal conversation piece, playful in both form and function. I love how it drags out the normal function of a time-piece, forcing the viewer to read the time instead of telling the time. We could all use a little slowdown nowadays.

Although I don't normally post about installations like this, I found it too hard to resist. It's neat in an I'd-never-need-to-purchase-that kind of way.

In essence, the design is the sentence itself, where language is used to convey a clock as an idea, reducing a timepiece as an object to the immateriality of an "idea piece". The idea behind a designed object finally loses its pretense with matter and stands in front.