Carsten Höller
Half Clock, 2014

Installation view: Carsten Höller: LEBEN, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria, 2014
© Bildrecht, Vienna, 2017 | Photo: Attilio Maranzano

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Neon, cables, stainless steel, acrylic glass, DMX boxes, digital control gear
ø 80 cm
Commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary

Half Clock consists of three interlocking semispherical elements, each representing a different unit of time and illuminated in different colors. The outer lime green part represents seconds, the central turquoise one indicates minutes, and the inner pink one shows the count of hours. Instead of hands, certain axes of the clocks’ course are represented by neon tubes. Their allocation follows the logic of angular bisectors, wherein the largest undivided area that forms the lower, imaginary half of the sphere is 180°, the subsequent one 90°, then 45°, 22.5°, 11.25°, 5.625°, and finally 2.8125°. Transferred onto the face of an analog clock, the sebisectors function as hands, which are represented, and thus made visible, only at the seven fixed degree points. On every occasion when the time coincides with the position of one of the neon tubes, they will turn on, but only for the particular second, minute, or hour based on the equation. The second hand lights up for only one second, the minute hand for one minute, and the hour hand for one full hour. Thus, if the time is 9 hours 14 minutes and 15 seconds, all three half-spheres light up at the respective representative bisectors. If the time is 16 hours 20 minutes and 30 seconds, none of the three half-globes are lit.Half Clock thus shows two ways of representing time simultaneously but in hierarchical order, with the usual 60-digit foundation being supplanted by a new way of dividing time units along the 360 degrees of a circle.

PAST LOANS

Exhibition: Carsten Höller: DAY
Venue: MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon
Curator: Vicente Todolí
October 5, 2021 - February 28, 2022

*1961 in Brussels, Belgium I Living and working in Stockholm, Sweden

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