Relative Cosmos – Fragmented Oikos

The emperor Augustus had an immense sundial erected on the Campo Marzio as part of an urban concept to derive legitimation for his reign as emperor and the Pax Romana in the known world from the eternal rules of the sun’s orbit. Sundials always function only locally and through the ecliptic of the earth’s movement and the phenomenon of the equation of time, true time runs faster or slower than our clocks over the year: it is our time, and with it our space, that is relative.

This space-time phenomenon is made apparent through the installation of a catoptric meridian – a reflecting gnomon mirror – and its deviation from simultaneity. A meridian describes the precise axis between north and south and marks the passage of the sun on every day of the year on itself. The spatial figure of equation of time, however, shows the true movement of the earth, which rotates faster or slower depending on its proximity to the sun and thus changes the length of our minutes, hours and days: the deviation of spacetime from the global convention of uniform days, and the relativisation of supposedly eternal principles of order, are made visible and comprehensible in space. The truth of time and space is a matter of perspective.

In an increasingly fractal world and society, the attempt to synthesise new forms, new possible truths, out of the supposedly incompatible, the foreign, even the opposing, is as fascinating today as it was then. May we evolve more new, complex and adaptable rules to bring new order to our dynamic society, to our oikos, over and over again.

Works on show:

Catoptric Meridian 2018/2019

Architectural Kaleidoscope 2018/2019

Model of Rome 2018/2019