Digital texts (Clocks. Beyond the concrete)

A work consisting of twenty-eight clocks and computer printouts according to a programme developed by Jerzy Baranowski. The clocks (identical working alarm clocks placed on wooden shelves) were arranged according to a strict system: nine clocks on the top shelf ran normally, nine on the middle shelf were immobilised, and nine on the bottom shelf ran backwards. In vertical columns, the state of the clocks was also determined by fixed rules concerning the presence or absence of hands and their mutual relations (for example, the exchange of the hour and minute hands). An alarm clock dismantled into parts was placed beneath. Every hour, the position of the hands was photographed, and on the basis of these photographs the coordinates of places on the globe where such time was simultaneously recorded were calculated; the programme for this operation was developed by a computer scientist from the Wrocław University of Technology. Time – its essence and perception – is one of the themes most frequently addressed by Dróżdż; here the work reflects on the relativity of time and the relationship between the time-measuring device (the clock) and the concept of time itself. At the artist’s monographic exhibition at the National Museum in 2009, the work was executed using new technical possibilities in the form of electronic wall clocks with white dials and black hands, consistent with his characteristic colour scheme.