Contributing Artists

Bob Kephart

Exhibition Statement as Preserved in the SUGS/SITE Archives:

“In this installation three different elements–the kinetic sculpture, the metronome, and the printed text– are combined to form a greater metaphor that questions and explores our culture’s (Western) construction of time. The installation is a means of realizing interpretations and conveying preceptions of time.

Our society defines time as linear, with a definite progression. Every way that we define and construct our idea of lineaer time is an abstraction. We have carved up the Earth into time zones, set the international date line, and divided up the day into 24 hours, to name but a few examples of how this abstraction has deviated from the reality of the passage of the earth around the sun and the cycles of the moon. These elements which were used to create our construction of time have become abstractions because of this.

Lines and Circles is a metaphor for the idea of arbitrary time. The printed text, which reads ‘1997 A.D.’, represents dominant construction of time in our culture. We have set an arbitrary point from which time starts from. The fact that this date is in itself in dispute adds to it being even more arbitrary. The kinetic sculpture is symbolic for cyclical time, time based upon natural elements (specifically the sun) because it is solar powered and also because of its iconography as referential to ancient cultures (the pyramid). The metronome in the box is the focal point of this installation. It is representative of the idea of time as arbitrary to the individual. When a viewer opens the cabinet containing the metronome, that is when the metronome starts and the cycle begings, and then they use that moment to start counting the cycles; thus, defining their sense of linear time. This installation is meant to raise the viewer’s awareness of our cultures construction of time and to question it.”