Time of Death from Chris Purdie on Vimeo.

Time of Death is an average, brown, wooden framed clock with a light face; dark, thin black Helvetica numbers; and dark, straight arms. It is hanging on a white wall, by the use of a large nail driven directly through the plastic shell and the clock face. Placement of the nail just below the “eleven” causes it to hang askew and keeps the second hand from passing. The second hand hits the nail, jumps back two seconds, then goes forward again two seconds just to hit the nail and repeat the process. Every four seconds when the second hand hits the nail, a clicking sound happens, louder than the usual ticking of the clock. This object, resembling a clock but void of its function, is locked in a battle to maintain its course but through an obstruction is set on a new course. Everything is incapacitated and frozen except for the second hand, which continues the pathetic, desperate attempt to continue.

A clock is time’s representative, so it is where I went to voice my complaints. Time is the master of humanity. As a fellow slave to the clock, I presented a way to revolt against the constant, slow, torturous system developed to provide structure and remind us of our eventual end. Time is the fundamental measure of mortality. In these exercises time is turned against itself in a futile effort to stop it or at least enact the desire to do so.