IN THE MOMENT

In The Moment is an installation comprised of 240 analogue alarm clocks. These clocks are placed on a structure surrounding a single bed upon which the general public is invited to lie down in order to experience the piece.

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Each of the clocks’ alarms is set to ring at always the same given time, and left to ring until it stops. Each is also assigned a different time to begin ringing, thus leaving approximately 20 alarms sounding at any one time. Each is thus replaced by a new alarm as it stops ringing and this cycle continuously repeats, with alarms set to stop and others to start at regular intervals.

 

Analogue clocks are stuck in a loop, endlessly repeating their own clock-time, as their hands go round and round and round and round. But this is an illusion, as time goes past and cannot be truly recaptured.

 

Despite being set as precisely as possible, these analogue clocks, due to their imperfect nature (clocks are not the perfect machines we tend to assume they are), will begin to compose their own ever-mutating sound piece.

 

Two sounds can be heard in this piece:

 

The ticking – sounding out time as it irretrievably goes past, second by second. This is the sound of regret, of lying in bed thinking: “why, why, why…?”.

The ringing – reminding the supine listener of his/her duties, of the future he/she must attend to.

Through listening, something of the moment itself is being experienced, as sound is a product of change and can only exist in the moment, can only be experienced in the moment.

 

The bed takes one to a personal place, a private and vulnerable place.

 

Furthermore, by lying down to listen in the safe setting of the gallery, one is saying: “I am here to do this and nothing else”. I am here, in a personal, vulnerable, intimate place, allowing myself the time to listen to the moment through sound. I am listening to the sounds of regret/past (the ticking) and duty/future (the ringing), but in this safe setting, I am fully present, and at peace with time.

 

I am.