Summary:
This installation allows a user to explore time. It consists of a stone platform with carvings on the surface representing the earth and the path of the sun across the sky, and an inset trench full of dirt. By forming a ball of dirt and pushing it along the path, one can play an audio recording of Macbeth’s final soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.
This piece responds to the Ancient Egyptian symbolism of Khepri, which represents the passage of the sun across the sky as a scarab pushing a dung ball across the sky. This mundane and tedious realization of the sun and the passage of time is also reflected in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Technical:
The path along the stone altar hides a soft potentiometer, and a speaker is concealed below the altar. The input from the potentiometer sets the start time of a brief loop in the audio recording of the soliloquy. As the ball moves along the track, the loop shifts continuously through the recording. By pushing the ball slowly along the track, one can listen to the speech uninterrupted. If one leaves the ball in one spot, that section of the recording will loop indefinitely.
