Grande Father Clock
A performance devised by Lachlan Anthony.
Performed by Ron Anthony, Tod Anthony & Lachlan Anthony.
31st October 2011, Gallery Eight, Millers Point, Sydney.
Photography by Maja Basker.
the Anthony men turned away from the clock to face the audience and begin the process of broadcasting a
perceived chronology…
Lachlan (verbalising seconds): One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two,
twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty,
thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-three, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven,
thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven,
forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven,
fifty-eight, fifty-nine…
Tod: (verbalising minutes): fifty-six
“It was just the idea that life could be more interesting if you could stretch
these things [the laws of physics and chemistry] a little. After all, we have
to accept these so-called laws of science because it makes life more
convenient, but that doesn’t mean anything so far as validity is concerned”
Marcel Duchamp
Lachlan: One, two, three, four, etc. …………….. fifty-nine
Tod: fifty-seven
Lachlan: One, two, three, four, etc. …………….. fifty-nine
Tod: fifty-eight
Lachlan: One, two, three, four, etc. …………….. fifty-nine
Moment and Hypothesis
At 6:55 pm on Friday the 31st October 2010 at Gallery Eight in Sydney, three generations of men from the
Anthony Family gathered to participate in a { forty-two / fifty-one } - minute performance devised by artist,
son, and grandson Lachlan Anthony. The performance entitled Grande Father Clock, physically dramatised a
subjectively perceived version of time, by assigning masculine players from the one generational lineage to
each of the three hands of a clock; the second, the minute and the hour. The hypothesis was that over the
course of a | finite | period, the human perception of time flow would be different from the rational, modularity
of a clock. Hence, through a performative juxtaposition of man and clock, the gap between perceived time and
modular chronology would be exposed.
Tod: fifty-nine
Lachlan: One, two, three, four, etc. …………….. fifty-nine
RON (verbalising the hour): Seven
Lachlan: One, two, three, four, etc. …………….. fifty-nine
Tod: One
The subjectively perceived time at this point being 7:01 pm.
Results
Method
The human time ensemble was arranged on the footpath outside the gallery. Lachlan Anthony, Tod Anthony
and Ron Anthony were seated left to right, facing the street. Inside the gallery mounted on a wall visible to the
audience was a large digital display LED clock. Each player was provided with a microphone that fed through
to a simple P.A and sound desk. Speakers broadcast the voice of the human clock into the sonic landscape of
the urban surroundings.
Ron Anthony b.1930 (Father to Tod Anthony and Grandfather to Lachlan Anthony) was responsible for
verbalising the hour hand;
Tod Anthony b. 1955 (Son to Ron Anthony and father to Lachlan Anthony) was responsible for verbalising
the minute hand;
Lachlan Anthony b. 1984 (Son to Tod Anthony and grandson to Ron Anthony) was responsible for
verbalising the second hand.
The 1st second was verbalised by Lachan at 6:55 pm as the Anthony men turned to synchronise with the
digital display clock. After this initial synchronisation with Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT),
This process proceeded until the perceived time of 7:46 pm and 31 seconds at which point Lachlan ceased
verbalising the second hand. At this moment, the chronological time displayed on the digital clock was
recorded as 7:37 pm. This meant that there was a nine-minute gap between the subjectively perceived time,
and the chronological time. This margin of dissonance is the significant concern of this experiment, as it
demonstrates the relative incompatibility of modular chronology in explaining the subjective perceptions of
time.
Post Script
During one discussion with my grandfather about the nature of time and how we perceive it at different
points in our lives he said “Well it’s quite simple really, our perception of how fast or slow time seems to pass must always
answer to the base reality of how long we have spent as a perceptual being on this earth. In other words the older you get the
faster a year seems to pass” Let me explain he says, “as a 5 year old, one year is 1/5 of the total time the child has existed, as
a ten year old one year becomes 1/10th and thus with each year lived the yearly module becomes a smaller percentage of total
lived age. For me at age 79, the years flow by so quickly because one year is 1/79th of my time spent here on earth.”