Auld Lang Syne 2007
2007.01.01
Type
Installation
Keywords
time, time ball, clock, new year's
Entities
Showing
The Tranzac, Toronto, New Year's Eve, 2006
Auld Lang Syne was an installation for New Year's, 2006 at the Tranzac that played on our anticipation of the progress of time, and of the specific events by which we mark our existence.
The basis of the installation was a clock that would count down from 30,000 BC until New Year's day, 2007. The clock was accompanied by a turntable playing seasonal choral music, and a video of a time ball that would drop at New Year's.
New Year's was, however, asymptotic to the progress of the clock, meaning that the closer that the clock approached New Year's, the slower it progressed, causing it to virtually stand still at 11:59:59 pm on December 31, 2006.
Further compounding audience frustration, both the turntable and the clock would rewind to a period in the past—several hundred years for the clock—and resume the countdown, should the audience make too much noise—making it impossible to enact any traditional "10! ... 9! ... 8!" countdown.
