The Essential Strangeness of Time
Reconstructing Athanasius Kircher’s magnetic clock.
Caroline Bouguereau, a French artist now living in Ireland, was commissioned by Stanford University Libraries in 2001 to reconstruct the magnetic clock described by German Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). Jonah Peretti, emeritus director of R&D at Eyebeam in New York City, conducted the interview.
How did you decide which machine to build?
I liked the way the clock was a miniaturized model of the cosmos. It was a puzzle, an enigma ... a fish pointing mysteriously at the globe of the Earth, as it rotates slowly. The visual impact of the engraving appealed to me, and the magic of the machine: how were the globe and fish suspended? ...
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