This project focuses on the essence of the notion of time, rather than to its general definition.
A group of people was asked to pose as a set of numbers, from 0 to 9, wearing the yellow sleeves.
A group of people was asked to pose as a set of numbers, from 0 to 9, wearing the yellow sleeves.
These images have been used to produce an on-line clock, set on the viewers’ computer’s clock. The numbers are humans performing an everlasting choreography referencing the (real) passing of time, people standing as the hours moving only once every 60 minutes, while the one acting as the tenths of seconds executes a very fast routine in a continual move.
Liverpool St Station, 18:00:00 - 19:00:00
All is flux, nothing stays still, no man ever steps twice in the same river, observed Heraclites. Letterform for the Ephemeral is a typographic performance that took place in a busy train station during rush hour, in order to reflect the flow characteristic of the place. It involved eight people mimicking a digital clock in real time with their arms and shoulders. Standing in line side by side in the middle of the station, two of them acted as the hours units, two for the minutes, and another two for the seconds. The two other performers stood as the colons separating each unit of time. The wearable letterform, with its specific flexibility, allowed the message (in this case Time) to change from one second to the other, following more or less accurately the ticking of the station’s clock.
The numbers each of the performers enacted were enhanced by day-glow long-sleeved boleros, which besides making them visible, also echoed the yellow of the train schedule boards above them. Used in this specific context and by using people as a medium, this temporary letterform confronts the economic value of time (as in time is money) with the individual perception of it.
What was achieved with this experiment with wearable type was a hic et nunc letterform, a letterform for the here and now, finding its raison d’être when used in real time.
This project was revisited for several performance-based project for WWF Deutschland, Clerkenwell Design Week, Alstom Paris, Havas Lisbon, the Victoria & Albert museum, amongst others.