Standard Time
// VIEW MATERIALS
Imperial time aspires to be universal... Back in the 18th century
as global travel by sea was coming into its own, hundreds of ships
and thousands of mariners were being lost at sea or wrecked on
shore because, once out of sight of land, they had no reliable
way of telling where they were on the world's seemingly infinite
oceans. In 1714, Parliament offered a £20,000 prize to anyone
who could solve the greatest scientific problem of the day: accurately
measuring longitude at sea. While others looked for the answers
in the stars, John Harrison (Gambon), an 18th century, self-educated
Yorkshire carpenter, who had already built one of the most accurate
clocks in the world, believed he could make a clock that would
still be able to keep time on board a ship - something that many
people deemed 'impossible.' The time piece he imagined would allow
sailors to chart their exact position and avoid further maritime
tragedies. The emergence of "longitude" is literally
Harrison's story of how he struggles to perfect his idea, in defiance
of the physical challenges of the sea, and the more intellectual
challenges of the Board of Longitude, set up by Parliament to
adjudicate the prize. Harrison, convinced his idea would work,
moves to London and sets about building his first sea-clock. In
1727 John Harrison had made a clock with a 'gridiron' pendulum,
which consisted of nine alternating steel and brass rods to eliminate
any effects of temperature changes. And in the years that followed,
he used this mechanism to make four clocks each to rise to the
challenge to solve the Longitude Problem. By 1762, when at the
end of a 147-day sea voyage, H4 (pictured here) had lost only
1 minute and 55 seconds - it was probably one of the most complex
devices of its era - if not one of the most subtly influential.
It set the "tone" of time for the next several centuries.
What me and Julian did was mix the sound of it's clock mechanisms
with the sound of the U.S. cesium particle based "atomic"
clocks and mixed those with his sculpture. Rhythm, after all,
can be both visible and invisible, and we wanted to create a sound
track to a different kind of "world order." By the way,
Julian was one of the principal designers of the World Trade Center
"Towers of Light/Tribute in Light" Memorial. You will
be hearing about this artist soon...
Lehman Maupin gallery: www.lehmanmaupin.com |
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OUT NOW! DJ Spooky's "Sound Unbound"
CREATION REBEL MIX CD on Trojan Records
DJ Spooky presents
DJ Spooky has produced material on the new Yoko Ono album.
DJ Spooky and the 2007 Venice Biennial
RHYTHM SCIENCE:
