clocks that show time

there’s something so precise about the sharp pointed fingers that so exactly delineate the passage of time on analogue timepieces. breaking experience into visually perceptible and predictable amounts provides a form of comfort. that time is an artifice constructed by man to allow for the measurement of what constitutes experience is something that the following designs and designers are playing with.

bomi kim has created something so simple that it compels me to wonder why no one has come up with anything similar before.
essentially a clock without a face or hands, “the meaning of time” is simple a clock mechanism to which you attach objects, images, whatever strikes your fancy and then allow those objects to describe your own experiencing of time.

the possibilities are endless - tubes of gel liquid with tiny objects inside that move from end to end as the tube rotates about the mechanism, flowers, twigs, roots, hot glued pebbles, boy you could have fun redesigning this!
at the moment it is a design proposal, but i see that the designer has set up a soon-to-be functional website that might bear bookmarking just in case this becomes available . . . .

utlizing a different design aesthetic to express a similar form of relationship with time is ”the last clock”. the last clock has a second "hand", a minute "hand" and an hour "hand". what's unique about the "hands" is that they are arranged in concentric circles, the outermost circle describing the passage of seconds, the middle circle describing the passage of minutes, and the innermost circle the passage of hours.

each of the hands of the last clock are made from a slice of live video feed. as the hands rotate around the face of the clock they leave a trace of what has been happening in front of the camera. the video feed for the clock can be any video source: you could mount a camera on the clock itself, hook up a remote camera to a streamed internet or tv signal. there are many possibilities. after the clock has been running for 12 hours, you end up with a mandala of archived time! here's a still image of one that was hooked up to a video feed of a golf game . . . and a close up of the same image . . .

if you would like to know more about the last clock, it’s website has video as well as still images of the clock in action that are not only beautiful but can be purchased at the site.