New Work: Clock for a Film Maker
“Clock for a Film Maker” is the fifth and final clock in “Matter of Time,” a collection of unique timepieces designed by Pentagram’s Daniel Weil.
It is currently on display at Katara Cultural Village in Doha where, earlier this month, Weil presented the entire “Matter of Time” series including Clock for an Acrobat, Clock for an Architect, Clock for an Astronomer and Clock for a Card Player.
For over 25 years, Weil has been fascinated by technology and conceptual notions of time. As Weil observes, film is a transformative technology, allowing us to record and observe the modern age. “It records time and needs time, with a chemical process revealing the image on the negative, gratification rewarded,” he says.
The armature for Clock for a Film Maker is a ladder that, step by step, mirrors the frame by frame construction of the 35 mm film, an obsolete format yet a persistent notion. Animated forks like sprockets feed the movement with positively and negatively charged metal beads. As Weil says, “Time is action: when captured in film it can be slowed down frame by frame.”
