Infinite ways of telling time

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Memento mori watch in the shape of skull, Vienna, c. 1820 (© Musée de l’horlogerie Beyer Zurich) Memento mori, which in Latin means ‘Remember you must die’ has been a favourite among watchmakers who use the skull to show our impermanence. The Lausanne exhibition also includes more recent examples by the contemporary Swiss artist John Armleder and designer Fiona Krüger. MUDAC

Girard Perregaux 1935 (© Girard Perregaux, La Chaux-de-Fonds) Example of a ‘jump watch’ - because the time segments ‘jump’ in packs of combined lengths. This 1935 Art Nouveau wrist watch has three windows, one for hours, one for minutes that jump every five minutes and a third one for seconds that jump every ten seconds. MUDAC

Seiko, watch with a radio and television receiver, Japan 1982 (© Musée International d’Horlogerie, La Chaux-de-Fonds) The Japanese manufacturer did not wait for the digital age to experiment with a watch that could receive radio and television, as well as tell the time. MUDAC

Vacheron Constantin, Genève, 1930, pocket watch (© Vacheron Constantin) By pressing on the side button, the arms of the Chinese figure fly into position to tell the right time, the right arm for the hour and the left arm for the minutes. MUDAC

Maarten Baas, Grandfather Clock, from the series Real Time, video installation, 2009 (© Carpenters Workshop Gallery) Baas is a Dutch furniture designer who created his Grandfather clock by filming actors through a hazy pane of glass as they carefully draw and wipe away the numbers in real time. MUDAC

Mark Formanek: Standard Time. 2007 (© Mark Formanek, Datenstrudel) German Formanek commissions 70 workers (in three shifts) to continuously build a digital time display in real time: a work that involves 1,611 changes within a 24 hour period. MUDAC

Darren Almond: Perfect Time, 2012 (© Darren Almond. Courtesy Galerie Xippas) English artist Darren Almond explores the effect of time on individuals. His assemblage of flip dials, with numbers cut in half that change every minute, produces a clock incapable of telling the right time. The irony of the title will not be missed. MUDAC

Gianni Motti: Big Crunch Clock, 1999 Motti is a Swiss conceptual artist of Italian origin whose works tend to be politically charged. His Big Crunch is the countdown of a billion years until the solar system is meant to explode. Instead of telling the time that is, the clock tells the time that is left. MUDAC

Martin d’Esposito, Alexandre Gaillard: Swiss Koo, Poya, 2014 (© Swiss Koo) Poya designates the yearly move of cattle up the alpine slopes in the summer months. This clock by ECAL graduates also refers to the paper-cutting tradition that was originally used to register the number of cattle per herd. MUDAC

Wendy Gaze & Arnaud Imobersteg: Semaphore, 2013 © Sandra Pointet, HEAD-Genève) As the paper roll unwinds, time is printed out minute by minute, until the hour when a cuckoo ‘sings’ on the paper. MUDAC

Nicolas Le Moigne: Quelle heure est-il (What time is it?), 2004 (© ECAL/Jordi Pla) Ecal graduate Le Moigne has built his reputation as a young designer who transforms simple ideas into beautiful objects. His 2004 clock is meant to slow us down by proposing a lecture of time through words, rather than numbers. MUDAC

Eric Morzier: Horloge tactile, horloge murale, 2005 (© Éric Morzier / SIGMASIX / ECAL) A screen displays a cloud of points that move randomly, but when it is touched the points gather to form a clock, until it is released and the points resume once again their random paths. Artist Eric Morzier says that the ephemeral formation of the clock reminds us that time continues inexorably. MUDAC

Seraina Lareida: prototype of wrist-watch ARA, 2014, Düdingen (Photo © Cédric Widmer) Graubünden-based industrial designer Seraina Lareida has created the prototype of a wrist watch with superimposed transparent dials that create a constantly changing moiré effect. MUDAC

Alicja Kwade: Gegen den Lauf, mural, 2014 © kamel mennour) By a young Polish artist, this clock spins backwards around the seconds-needle blocked at 12 o’clock. MUDAC

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Telling time at Lausanne’s design museum, mudac, celebrates our quest to give a shape to time.

With more than 130 timepieces from 1550 to today, heritage watches of great value are presented alongside crazy contemporary designs and enter into a dialogue that is thought-provoking, intriguing, awe-inspiring and often amusing.

By watchmakers, but also by artists and designers, in materials as diverse as glass, paper, video and feathers, the selection offers a glimpse into the infinite ways to tell time.

The result is one of the most original exhibitions of the year. 

(Images: mudac, Lausanne, Text: Michèle Laird)