A clock with a face but no hands. When a visitor stands in front of it, his/her own body’s shadow appears as a hand on the clock, which then begins to tick. Using the latest image processing technology, only shots of visitors who stand facing the work are selected from among pictures taken by a built-in camera, and cut out as silhouettes. As the time intervals at which the images are updated vary by hand—the hour hand once every hour, the minute hand every minute, and the second hand every second—those who stand in front of the clock longer than one minute can watch their own shadows appearing on the clock face in three different shapes.

A clock is a tool that displays the time as it passes regularly and equally for all people, however our subjective experience of time in everyday life isn’t necessarily constant. There are intense moments that feel like an eternity, and then again there are periods of time that seem to pass in the blink of an eye. This clock, installed in a public space and only working as long as one is there, reminds us of this notion of “our own time.”

Conceived as part of the Digital Public Art Project, the piece has been worked out in collaboration between the artist and technicians as a work with strongly interactive qualities that integrates well into public spaces.

System: MATSUMURA Naruaki, TOGASHI Masanori (Aizawa Yamasaki Lab., the University of Tokyo)