Stereochron Island Manifesto

PUBLIC PROJECT: As every citizen of Stereochron Island knows, we’re campaigning to be officially recognised as a state without clocks. We’ve been through a phase of research and experiment to test our new model of multi-sensory timetelling. And now, as

Stereochron Island Manifesto

PUBLIC PROJECT: As every citizen of Stereochron Island knows, we’re campaigning to be officially recognised as a state without clocks. We’ve been through a phase of research and experiment to test our new model of multi-sensory timetelling. And now, as

The Alphabet & Calendar of Trees

STUDIO PROJECT: In his autobiography Roland Barthes mentions an ancient Greek ‘alphabet of trees’. He may have been mistakenly referring to the Ogham alphabet, an ancient Celtic script found on monuments in Ireland and western Britain. A late medieval text

The Alphabet & Calendar of Trees

STUDIO PROJECT: In his autobiography Roland Barthes mentions an ancient Greek ‘alphabet of trees’. He may have been mistakenly referring to the Ogham alphabet, an ancient Celtic script found on monuments in Ireland and western Britain. A late medieval text

Heaven is in the east: how sacred architecture plays with time

An ESSAY inspired by the public conversation I was fortunate to have with Lena Sjöstrand, Chaplain of Lund Cathedral, as we walked through this symbolically charged space in April 2018. The event was part of the Råängen seminar, ‘Nothing is

Heaven is in the east: how sacred architecture plays with time

An ESSAY inspired by the public conversation I was fortunate to have with Lena Sjöstrand, Chaplain of Lund Cathedral, as we walked through this symbolically charged space in April 2018. The event was part of the Råängen seminar, ‘Nothing is

RESEARCH RESIDENCY & PUBLIC PROJECT: Stereochron Island re-imagines Victoria Park as a tiny fictional territory campaigning to become a State Without Clocks. As self-appointed Campaign Secretary, I invited several expert investigators – including a botanist, a musician and an astronomer

RESEARCH RESIDENCY & PUBLIC PROJECT: Stereochron Island re-imagines Victoria Park as a tiny fictional territory campaigning to become a State Without Clocks. As self-appointed Campaign Secretary, I invited several expert investigators – including a botanist, a musician and an astronomer

Geometries of Time

STUDIO PROJECT:  This drawing study is an attempt to sum up the major ways of picturing time over the course of human history, step by step. In some ways it apes the efforts of 17th-century luminaries to make vastly complex

Geometries of Time

STUDIO PROJECT:  This drawing study is an attempt to sum up the major ways of picturing time over the course of human history, step by step. In some ways it apes the efforts of 17th-century luminaries to make vastly complex

Solar palindrome

STUDIO DOODLE: How accidentally neat the word noon is as figure to describe the Sun’s journey through the day. Title: Solar palindrome Date: 2018

Solar palindrome

STUDIO DOODLE: How accidentally neat the word noon is as figure to describe the Sun’s journey through the day. Title: Solar palindrome Date: 2018

Dusk bloom clock

FIELD RESEARCH: The Evening Primrose is a dusk clock. This four-minute movie shows how it blooms at the close of day, like a bell intoning as the Sun slides toward the horizon. The video’s speed hasn’t been altered. If you

Dusk bloom clock

FIELD RESEARCH: The Evening Primrose is a dusk clock. This four-minute movie shows how it blooms at the close of day, like a bell intoning as the Sun slides toward the horizon. The video’s speed hasn’t been altered. If you

Sheep eye clock

FIELD RESEARCH: A photo study for my Stereochron Island project. Title: Sheep eye clock, A & B Date: 2014

Sheep eye clock

FIELD RESEARCH: A photo study for my Stereochron Island project. Title: Sheep eye clock, A & B Date: 2014

Dusk falls on Stereochron

FIELD RESEARCH: Our research into alternative clocks began on Stereochron Island in 2014* with the Spring dawn chorus. We completed them with this sound study at dusk on Vertumnalia, the ancient celebration of seasonal change. The model for this final

Dusk falls on Stereochron

FIELD RESEARCH: Our research into alternative clocks began on Stereochron Island in 2014* with the Spring dawn chorus. We completed them with this sound study at dusk on Vertumnalia, the ancient celebration of seasonal change. The model for this final

Cautionary notices for clock users

STUDIO PROJECT: Signs to be placed beside clocks. From my Stereochron Island campaign. Title: Cautionary notices for clock users, 1 & 2 Date: 2014 Media: 1. photocopy 2. cyanograph paper exposed to sunlight

Cautionary notices for clock users

STUDIO PROJECT: Signs to be placed beside clocks. From my Stereochron Island campaign. Title: Cautionary notices for clock users, 1 & 2 Date: 2014 Media: 1. photocopy 2. cyanograph paper exposed to sunlight

A Storm is Blowing/Timekeeper

RESEARCH RESIDENCY & EXHIBITION: From January to October 2013 I was Timekeeper in residence at the UCL Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London, supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Council. The tiny Petrie Museum is housed in a former

A Storm is Blowing/Timekeeper

RESEARCH RESIDENCY & EXHIBITION: From January to October 2013 I was Timekeeper in residence at the UCL Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London, supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Council. The tiny Petrie Museum is housed in a former

On Certainty

RADIO ESSAY: I’m looking at an old map of the moon – a plump, pitted disk on thick yellowish paper. This is the first scientifically accurate lunar map. The astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini made it in around 1679, after years

On Certainty

RADIO ESSAY: I’m looking at an old map of the moon – a plump, pitted disk on thick yellowish paper. This is the first scientifically accurate lunar map. The astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini made it in around 1679, after years

No Such Place

RESEARCH PROJECT & EXHIBITION: Old sea charts are dotted with phantom islands: landforms that never existed or were lost under the ocean. Only their names hint at what their finders saw. Was Bale of Cotton named for its soft chalk

No Such Place

RESEARCH PROJECT & EXHIBITION: Old sea charts are dotted with phantom islands: landforms that never existed or were lost under the ocean. Only their names hint at what their finders saw. Was Bale of Cotton named for its soft chalk

Smoke

IMPLICASPHERE EXHIBITION: Smoke seems to be vanishing from our fireplaces and fingertips. While it is rapidly increasing in other parts of the world, in London soon there may be nothing left but its symbolic quality. Smoke is going up in

Smoke

IMPLICASPHERE EXHIBITION: Smoke seems to be vanishing from our fireplaces and fingertips. While it is rapidly increasing in other parts of the world, in London soon there may be nothing left but its symbolic quality. Smoke is going up in

A Threefold Yarn

RESEARCH RESIDENCY & MINI-PUBLICATION: A Three-Fold Yarn is a parlour game. Players would spend long evenings rooting through the bookshelf for stories and pictures to combine in a contest that’s rather like an elaborate version of Consequences. The rules are

A Threefold Yarn

RESEARCH RESIDENCY & MINI-PUBLICATION: A Three-Fold Yarn is a parlour game. Players would spend long evenings rooting through the bookshelf for stories and pictures to combine in a contest that’s rather like an elaborate version of Consequences. The rules are

The ideal habitat of the Mole

ESSAY: The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame’s tale of creatures of the field and riverbank, famously opens with the Mole escaping his underground world to the sunlit meadows above. After a lifetime of sensory seclusion, even the sound of

The ideal habitat of the Mole

ESSAY: The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame’s tale of creatures of the field and riverbank, famously opens with the Mole escaping his underground world to the sunlit meadows above. After a lifetime of sensory seclusion, even the sound of

Implicasphere

SERIAL MINI-PUBLICATION: From 2004 to 2009 Sally O’Reilly and I produced Implicasphere: an itinerary of meandering thought. This was a serial mini-publication that sought (in deliberate folly) to map on to a single broadsheet the meaning and use across culture

Implicasphere

SERIAL MINI-PUBLICATION: From 2004 to 2009 Sally O’Reilly and I produced Implicasphere: an itinerary of meandering thought. This was a serial mini-publication that sought (in deliberate folly) to map on to a single broadsheet the meaning and use across culture