Temple of Time (2014)


Location: Southern Pine Company, Savannah, Georgia, USA 


In this site-specific installation work, housed inside an abandoned 20-foot shipping container, the sidewalls are studded with 868 clock mechanisms with an attached second hand. An image is projected at the rear end of the container. As the viewer starts walking inside, he figures out the image is actually his projection on the clock. Collectively, the mechanisms create a cacophony of ticking sounds. The experience of walking amidst the ticking clocks and reaching the end of the container to see one’s own projected image through an omniscient perspective establishes the viewer as the one being watched.However, the one being watched is simultaneously the viewer. Through the projection of one’s image onto the clock, the apparatus becomes a memento mori reminding the viewer of his or her own mortality.The moment we are born, we begin slowly proceeding towards the end of our existence. Ticking clocks are nothing but a manifestation of continuously passing time, and clocks instill an anticipation of the end in our minds. The second hand of the clock reminds us of our fragile relationship with the present moment.


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