Metronome: art installation in New York with extraordinary clock

What about Ilf: “Why he married her, I don’t understand. She is so ugly that they turn around in the street. So he turned around. Thinks what the hell? I came closer, but it was already too late. " It's the same with the city. Sometimes you linger somewhere and look around in bewilderment. Like, what is it and is it worth stopping here at all? And only after getting acquainted and understanding, realizing the scale and depth, you still stay and try to "penetrate". Today we are on East 14th Street, in the Union Square area, right at the 14th Street subway stop, at an installation called "Metronome".

Photo: Shutterstock

It is impossible to determine today who first came up with the idea to place it here—the city authorities or the authors. Most likely, the city wanted to somehow decorate the unpresentable facades of buildings on a small section of 14th Street between Broadway and 4th Avenue, directly opposite Union Square. Although, let’s say right away, the place was not entirely chosen. “You can’t see face to face. Big things are seen from a distance” - this is what Sergei Yesenin once taught us. Of course, this type of installation requires more space in front of the buildings. And here, in the summer, the trees of the park almost completely obscure the view of the building. However, artists Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel, already known for their joint art projects, installations and exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world, completed this work in 1999. What is she like?

In the installation proposed to the city, the artists tried to explore the nature of time in this somewhat unusual form, displaying it in several formats at once: historical, geological, stellar and real. They had to work with the facades of three buildings: the right building had panel walls, the left one had solid glazing, and the walls of the central one were made of brickwork. Therefore, the installation they proposed was actually assembled from three parts, and each of them had to carry its own semantic load: the right one - the conventional old time, the left one - the new time, the middle one - the connection of times.

Photo: Shutterstock

Let's first see what solutions they proposed for the side volumes. A large aluminum celestial sphere was mounted into the huge snow-white wall on the right side, covered on one side with dark blue enamel (night), and on the other with 23,75 carat gold leaf (day). The rotation of the sphere was controlled by an electronic stepper motor. Roughly speaking, the celestial sphere, well known since the Middle Ages, was presented here - a kind of indicator of the lunar phases. Similar products can still be found today on the walls of many ancient cathedrals and altars in different parts of the world. The principle of its operation is simple: at midnight we see only the dark half, at noon – only the golden half. Accordingly, at approximately 6 o'clock in the afternoon and 6 o'clock in the morning we observe two equal parts of the blue-gold sphere. If you conditionally divide them into smaller sections, then you can easily determine the hourly time.

Photo: Shutterstock

Now let's turn to the left side. Here, right in the panel of the glazed facade of the building, a digital display of 15 sections was installed, on which the time is displayed in a very original way. It is difficult for an untrained viewer to guess that there is a clock in front of him. Let's try to figure out what they really want to show us. The main thing is that this string of numbers, consisting of 76 LEDs, shows us the time in a 800-hour format. On the left we see 24 numbers in our usual form: hours (2 digits), minutes (2 digits), seconds (2 digits), tenths of a second (1 digit). The seven digits on the far right represent the amount of time remaining until the end of the 24-hour daily cycle, expressed as tenths of a second (1 digit), seconds (2 digits), minutes (2 digits), hours (2 digits). The number in the very center shows us hundredths of a second. If we decipher the time indicated in the photo, it turns out that the picture was taken at 14 hours 28 minutes and 06,4 seconds. Accordingly, there are 09 hours, 31 minutes and 53,5 seconds left until the next day. The number “3” between the two halves of the scoreboard indicates hundredths of a second at this moment. The clock is controlled by an Internet time signal. That is, if you don’t bother yourself with seconds and their fractions, then, looking at the first four digits on the left, you will immediately see the values ​​​​that are familiar to you: 14 hours 28 minutes. And if you need to know the time remaining until midnight, then these are the last 4 digits - 09 hours 31 minutes. Watching the watch work, you see that the end numbers hardly move, and those located in the middle of the scale simply flicker. Naturally, this is a second zone. It’s just like in an hourglass, where in the center you can clearly see how the sand flows from one half to the other. At first glance, it might seem that Christina and Andrew have come up with something incredibly complex and confusing here.

In fact, there is nothing special here - they simply used old knowledge at a new level of technological development. Every architecture student knows very well the story of how Charles IV built the Charles Bridge in Prague. The fact is that all the bridges built here before that time were demolished by the fast-flowing Vltava. Then he summoned astrologers, who assured him that if he began its construction exactly at the time they indicated, the bridge would stand forever (unharmed, by the way, to this day). How did they calculate the date? They simply took a series of simple odd numbers and wrote down the ascending series first, and then the descending series. And the result was a series of numbers 1-3-5-7-9, and then back 7-5-3-1. So when did Charles IV start building the bridge? That's right, in 1357, on the 9th day, 7th month, at 5 hours and 31 minutes. And here it’s the same, only with complex numbers the usual descending series cannot be read in a row, since then its continuation should begin with seconds. And we are accustomed to the fact that the hours are always read before the seconds. Because the second part (the rest of the day up to 24 hours) should be read as in Hebrew - from right to left. And since the computer does everything for us, we don’t have to calculate, but only remember how to read the signal sent to us. And don’t swear at all. It is clear that not everyone will want to feel like a Jew in this situation and when asked “How much time is left until midnight?” act as if you were in the Jewish quarter of Prague, where on one dial of the town hall the clock runs normally, and on the second it goes from right to left.

And yet we often hear that with this 15-character series of numbers, the artists were too clever. Like, who needs these tenths or hundredths of a second?

But this is a completely different question. Here we are talking about the main concept of the project, according to which the clocks on the right and left buildings should show the evolutionary path of the development of time measurement technology. From ancient, primitive, medieval clocks with lunar phases (where even the hour's time was difficult to determine accurately) to modern miracles capable of calculating the time to the nearest hundredth of a second. When looking at both buildings at once, this evolution is visible to the naked eye.

Now let's turn to the middle, most important building of the installation. It is no longer white, but red in color, and much higher than the rest, is actually the main tower of the complex.

Photo: Shutterstock

The centerpiece of the composition is a vertical wall of 52 bricks (000 feet high and 100 feet wide), constructed and placed to resemble circles radiating across water into which a stone has been thrown.

In the center of this wave-like pattern, a hole with a diameter of 1,5 meters is cut out, from which a stream of steam constantly rises upward. At noon and midnight, a huge geyser erupts from here, accompanied by the sound of an explosion. This is how the exact city time is marked: noon and midnight. Like in ancient times - the sound of a church bell.

The area around the hole is decorated with 23,75 carat gold leaf. We can assume that this golden halo conventionally personifies an explosion, similar to the one that resulted in the formation of the planet Earth. Or it evokes associations with the internal energy of the Earth, which finds a way out in the form of geothermal sources.

Slightly higher (on the wall) we see a large bronze hand, which is an exact (albeit enlarged) copy of the hand from the statue of George Washington (made by Henry Kirk Brown) and is located directly under the installation in Union Square Park.

Finally, at the bottom of the composition there is a huge piece of rock protruding from the wall - as a symbol of past geological eras.

This is what is shown in the main part of the installation. And an obvious question arises: “Why did the artists decide to name their work“ Metronome ”?

After all, a metronome (from the Greek "measure, measure"), as a rule, refers to the devices used by musicians as an accurate guide to the tempo, when performing a piece of music, and not at all such an installation. But the authors do not explain this to us. They only say that they wanted to create "a dialogue between the public and the city, as these eight elements symbolize the pulsing rhythms of the city, daily rituals and its astronomical and geological history."

That is, we are talking about the possibility of using this concept somewhat broadly, namely, to make an attempt to catch the rhythm of time. By creating something like a world time counter. Then, having pushed off from the period of the planet's birth, which splashed golden lava on the wall, continue the formation of the most powerful rocks in the earth's thickness, which made it possible to build huge skyscrapers on them. Then, from the huge stone on the facade, go back to the time when medieval celestial spheres were used to count it. And then to Washington, which, below from its monument, blesses the soldiers who conquered the city from the British in 1783. And from here, from the height of time, as the "father of the fatherland" proclaims the time of the birth of the Republic. And now we have before us and modern America, able to afford to count down the time to a hundredth of a second.

And the metronome hand froze on the wall, waiting. After all, life goes on. The city around is living and developing. Pulses with tremendous energy and marks every fleeing fraction of a second on this watch. And every day, at noon and midnight, he may trumpet: “It's okay! Alive, smoking room, alive! " And blow off steam. Meanwhile, the old lunar clock will show full day or full night.

Instead of an epilogue

Of course, thousands of people, not knowing these stories, pass by without trying to understand or learn anything. Although asking about it here is almost hopeless. Even contacting sellers who have been working here for decades (in the stores below), you will not get the correct answer. As one more proof of the main postulate of the installation: life flickers, like these numbers on the scoreboard, runs, not stopping anywhere, not stopping and not being distracted by anything. And since there are no indications that this board at the top is a clock anywhere, then what only the people will not come up with about this. For example, that these are acres of tropical forests destroyed every year, daily carbon emissions, time remaining until the end of the world, and the like. But more often than not, the public thinks it is the gross national debt figures shown here. And the most surprising thing in all these assumptions is that there is still no smoke without fire.

The fact is that such a National Debt Clock does exist in New York. They reflect the current total, which is constantly updated to show the United States' gross national debt and the share of each American family in it. They are currently installed on the west side of One Bryant Park, west of Sixth Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Streets in Manhattan. Since they have changed their address several times before, this gives people a reason to think that this is who they are.

And the second thing. About “seconds until the end of the world”. Climate Week was held in New York from 19 to 26 September 2020. During this period, artists Gan Golan and Andrew Boyd obtained consent to transform the Metronome into a Climate Clock. The fact is that, according to the calculations of ecologists, an ecological catastrophe is brewing in the world associated with the problems of climate warming. And since they even set the exact date when this will happen, this data was displayed on the screen. For example, on September 21, at 13:57, the Metronome display showed data that seven years, 102 days, 12 hours, 06 minutes and 08 seconds remained before the climatic catastrophe. Therefore, thanks to them for warning in advance. We still have time to prepare.

However, on September 27 "Metronome" returned to its old regime and again shows the usual time.

By the way, a similar situation already happened to him once. For several months in 2005, the clock also did not perform its direct functions, but was counting time until the International Olympic Committee announced New York as the organizer of the 2012 Summer Olympics. Then, unfortunately, the city lost an application to London to host the games, and the poor Metronome was again forced to return to his routine work.

It's time for us too. After all, he has long been reminded by the endless blinking of his scoreboards that the time has come to say goodbye.

Moreover, we have already managed to see another interesting place in the city. How many more ahead! Enjoy your travels. Until next time!

Address: Metronome. East 14th Street, Park Avenue, New York 10009

This article by ForumDaily author, journalist Leonid Raevsky, is part of the New York Walking Tour cycle.

Read his other materials on ForumDaily

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