“time: a token of constancy” by Shane Fahey, Evan Carr, David Carr, Honi Ryan

Title:

time: a token of constancy

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Exhibiting Artist(s):

Symposium:

ISEA2013: 19th International Symposium on Electronic Art

Venue(s):

Studio 22, ABC Ultimo, Ultimo, Australia

Artist Statement:

In this fascinating look at – or rather listen to – time, Shane Fahey collaborates with horologist Evan Carr and recording engineer David Carr and collectively they entertain whether time is “an increment of revolutions or a lagging magnification of vibration”. Fahey comments that “its image as a series of numbers seems to be such a useful aid for setting up activities but the sound of ticking is so delightfully paranoid!” He sees analogue timepieces as early robots, “many faced harmonic character[s] with proto-intelligence”, a “mesh of teeth and tiny fields of electromagnetic current … abject personalities with bare bones drive”. In this work they lay aside “notion[s] of productivity and equation with money”, and explore the pitch perception implications of different microphone characteristics located in close proximity to such timepieces; the shifting phase relationships between two or more timepieces sharing the same ‘sound stage’; and natural and artificial stereophonic images of two movements.
Shane Fahey: Conceptual Artist/Sound Engineer
Evan Carr: Horologist/Radio Broadcaster
David Carr: Musician/Sound Engineer
Honi Ryan: Visual Imagery