This installation allows a user to explore time. It consists of a clay ball sitting inside long wooden box lined with dirt, along with a projection. By pushing the clay ball along the box, one can play an audio and video recording of Macbeth’s final soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.
The projection is styled after an Ancient Egyptian sundial, with the shadow following the position of the clay ball, as well as the level of progression through the soliloquy.
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 clay ball contains a powerful magnet, and wooden box below conceals an Arduino-controlled hall effect sensor. A media server uses the data from the Arduino to play a short loop of video corresponding to the position of the clay ball. As the clay ball is moved, the position of the loop shifts smoothly from the beginning to the end of the soliloquy.
