Kazadokei
for MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART TOKYO
The kazadokei is a two-metre-tall clock with a second hand that measures 150cm. As these dimensions might suggest, the clock uses the same kind of mechanism employed in large timepieces for buildings and parks, rather than indoor wall or tabletop ones. When the hands of some faces align, the faces on their slender poles look like a hill of windmills. We’ve seen the clock’s raison d’etre shift from functionality to personal taste and design sensibility. Today, in an era when our perception of time is increasingly dulled, the kazadokei lets us experience time directly with our bodies and senses – and is a way of linking windmills, which revolve when they catch the wind, and clocks, which revolve when they catch time.
