Brennan March (500887096)

NPF 606
Friday, October 23rd, 2020
Artwork Submission and Discussion

Artwork;
The Clock (2010) by Christian Marclay

The Clock is a 2010 art installation project by Christian Marclay. Christian Marclay is both a
visual artist and composer and is famous for his pioneering work that uses records, turntables,
and musical instruments to create sound collages. His work from the 1970’s was seen as highly
influential, and his use of these instruments coincided independently with the birth of Hip Hop
around the same time.

The clock was developed from an idea Marclay had while shooting another video installation
called Screen Play in 2005, and the piece came together over the next three years by going
through thousands of video clips that showcased every minute of the day. This highlights the
editing skill that Marclay has. The piece itself tells time by featuring a 24-hour montage of
various movies, television clips, and clocks, that together as a whole create a clock that
accurately tells the time throughout the day. The Clock relates to video installation art because
it focuses on the human relationship to technology and media. The piece calls attention to
various famous media forms in pop culture, but instead makes you focus on the amount of time
that is passing as you watch it. For example, actors appear at various points in their career to
highlight the amount of time given towards visual entertainment. The video representing every
minute of the day through recognizable media makes us question the escapism that film
normally provides, and instead consider the amount of escapism that we receive and whether
or not this is healthy. Connecting shots show life and death, sunsets, burning cigarettes, and
withering flowers, which he considered markers of time in the 21st century. He also revisited
turntables in this piece to bring similar attention to time and sound, as well as his past work.

The Clock relates to week six’s topic of film and video installations because it subverts our
attention to question the medium of film as opposed to the films we watch, and how we let our
time and influence be taken by the medium so much. This brings attention to the consciousness
and humanization of watching videos in society and culture.