Telling Time

Exhibition Telling Time (L’éloge du Temps), MUDAC Lausanne, 2015

Maarten Baas, Grandfather Clock, from the series Real Time, video installation, 2009.

Gianni Motti, Big Crunch Clock, wall clock (countdown from 5 billion years to the explosion of the sun), 1999 (MAMCO Genève)

In 1999, G. Motti started “Big Crunch Clock” for the first time – a digital clock with twenty digits, from billions of years to tenths of a second – that counts down the five billion years between the sun and its explosion. The clock, which is none other than a detonator, is designed to operate, ironically, on solar energy, the artist forcing each purchaser to adapt the device to future technological inventions. After claiming responsibility for earthquakes, meteorite rains, moon and sun eclipses, G. Motti appropriated the largest natural disaster ever known, responsible for the disappearance of the solar system, and thus of the earth, thus freeing humanity from its millenarian terrors. With “Big Crunch Clock”, G. Motti pushes the boundaries of art, creating an unprecedented posthumous work of art, of which he is the repository.

En 1999, G. Motti met en marche pour la première fois « Big Crunch Clock » – horloge digitale comportant vingt chiffres, des milliards d’années aux dixièmes de secondes – qui fait le compte-à-rebours des cinq milliards d’années qui séparent le soleil de son explosion. L’horloge, qui n’est autre qu’un détonateur, est prévue pour fonctionner, ironie du sort, à l’énergie solaire, l’artiste obligeant chaque acquéreur à adapter l’appareil aux inventions technologiques futures. Après avoir revendiqué tremblements de terre, pluies de météorites, éclipses de lune et de soleil, G. Motti s’approprie la plus grosse catastrophe naturelle, jamais connue, responsable de la disparition du système solaire, et par là-même de la terre, délivrant du même coup l’humanité de ses terreurs millénaristes. Avec « Big Crunch Clock », G. Motti repousse les limites de l’art, créant d’ores et déjà une œuvre posthume sans précédent, dont il nous fait les dépositaires.

La Jetée, Chris Marker

La Jetée, Chris Marker, 1962

A man is a prisoner in the aftermath of World War III in post-apocalyptic Paris, where survivors live underground in the Palais de Chaillot galleries. Scientists research time travel, hoping to send test subjects to different time periods “to call past and future to the rescue of the present”. They have difficulty finding subjects who can mentally withstand the shock of time travel. The scientists eventually settle upon the prisoner; his key to the past is a vague but obsessive memory from his pre-war childhood of a woman he had seen on the observation platform (“the jetty”) at Orly Airport shortly before witnessing a startling incident there. He did not understand exactly what happened, but knew he had seen a man die.
After several attempts, he reaches the pre-war period. He meets the woman from his memory, and they develop a romantic relationship. After his successful passages to the past, the experimenters attempt to send him into the far future. In a brief meeting with the technologically advanced people of the future, he is given a power unit sufficient to regenerate his own destroyed society.
Upon his return, with his mission accomplished, he discerns that he is to be executed by his jailers. He is contacted by the people of the future, who offer to help him escape to their time permanently; but he asks instead to be returned to the pre-war time of his childhood, hoping to find the woman again. He is returned to the past, placed on the jetty at the airport, and it occurs to him that the child version of himself is probably also there at the same time. He is more concerned with locating the woman, and quickly spots her. However, as he rushes to her, he notices an agent of his jailers who has followed him and realizes the agent is about to kill him. In his final moments, he comes to understand that the incident he witnessed as a child, which has haunted him ever since, was his own death.

Design Research Methods Festival | 05–07.11.2018

Organisation: Minou Afzali, Miriam Koban

Program of the week

Lecture of Gerlinde Schuller, specialized in information design and visual journalism and founded The World as Flatland.

She spoke to us about how to present complex design stories. How to approach complexity!

© Gerlinde Schuller
© Gerlinde Schuller
© Gerlinde Schuller

She gives an example with this movie about the statistics of the city of Amsterdam, on stage with actors! It’s very interesting because there are notions of time that could be useful for my exhibition project.

© Gerlinde Schuller

Lecture of Catalina Jossen Cardozo, founder of By Maria

She presented us with the design processes she used for her project of making shoes on demand. We then did a workshop in groups to put the business canvas into practice.

© Catalina Jossen Cardozo
© Catalina Jossen Cardozo
© Catalina Jossen Cardozo

Social Design

Teacher: Minou Afzali
Visit the exhibition during the course Design with Social Impact. We analysed the exhibition by making a report which is available here!

Exhibition of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, 05.10.2018–03.02.2019

A loom to start a business, a do-it-yourself house, or a solar kiosk for local power supply: social design is design for and with society — and highly topical. The consequences of the global growth economy are becoming increasingly severe for both human beings and the environment. Social design confronts the increasing imbalance of resources, means of production, and future opportunities and relies on a new, equitable exchange between the individual, civil society, the state, and the economy. Against this background, architects, designers, craftsperson, and engineers are all developing solutions. This exhibition presents relevant international projects and discusses the redesign of social systems, as well as of living and working environments.
Anyone and everyone can help shape society!
The exhibition integrates a forum enabling visitors to share their own knowledge, opinions, and ideas.

«Design always stands in a social context. While I was working on Social Design, the political situation in many parts of the world developed in a way that I would not have thought possible. I am glad that there are designers and initiatives whose projects are embracing this challenge and have the world as a whole in mind.»
Angeli Sachs, Curator