Louis Tuckman finally clocks ‘Momentous’, a large scale outdoor projection that will transform the entire facade of Civic Hall into an animated mechanical clock inspired by Potts Clocks of Leeds! …
My favourite art piece in the last few years has to be Christian Marclay’s ‘The Clock’. It comprised thousands of found video footage from the history of film that mentioned the time either spoken or on a clock. I wasn’t told when I entered the cinema what the piece was and my first reaction was ‘all this footage that’s cleverly edited together contains clocks, that’s clever’. But after seeing Derrick Zoolander being late for his fashion show and Hugh Grant looking pompous as ever and a few glimpses at the time on my phone, I realised that the film was actually telling the time in real life. Whaaat?
The relationship between film and time is an interesting one. Essentially a clock is a mechanical animation. Time is the fourth dimension that runs through reality. Due to advancements in technology, we are now much more aware of the time. But this was not always the case. Coming from a small village, I grew up hearing the church bells ringing once at the quarter hour, twice at the half hour, thrice at three quarters of an hour, and four times on the hour, followed by a longer note played a certain number of times to indicate what hour of the day it is (five times for 5 o’clock, etc.) Thursday was always the worst day of the week as that’s when the village bell ringers tested the bells for hours and we’d always think ‘why the hell do they have to ring them for that long?’ And sometimes, ‘that sounds pretty fun actually; do you reckon I could have a go?’
Since moving to Leeds, I’ve always loved the huge gold clocks that stick so majestically on the sides of Leeds Civic Hall. They always struck me as one of the most beautiful monuments of the city. It’s only when hearing about Illuminos’ project that I have come to realise the amazing array of different public clocks around Leeds. You will be able to see these on the Potts Clocks Heritage Trail, my favourite being the one in Thornton’s arcade. Its life-size wooden automaton figures, Robin Hood, Friar Tuck and co. come to life to strike the bells, which is particularly bizarre when you’re walking through pissed late at night.
Earlier this year the brilliantly absurd Leeds artists Lord Whitney recreated these spectacles of fascination by converting the window of Nation of Shopkeepers on Cookridge Street in their project ‘The Old Clock Shop’. They got loads of aspiring art students from Manchester, Leeds and Stockport to help out, each making their own clock from cardboard (if you look on the right there’s one that me and my flatmates made) and at every quarter of an hour a man dressed as a cuckoo pops out. The footage they filmed of the Leeds folk’s moments of pleasure they enjoyed from this are great. In the film a man stops to enjoy it for a while before walking off, only to return pulling a face to try and scare the cuckoo man.
I wish I heard about Momentous earlier. The excitement I could feel from talking to Jane and Abby at Leeds Inspired who commissioned the piece was incredible. They told me about all the great things that Matt and Rob Vale of Illuminos have been filming. The nine hours of footage they have collected by filming well over a thousand people, is a glorious celebration of everything exciting that has been happening in Leeds between June and August. It includes bikers from the Tour De France, skaters, roller bladers, wheel-chair races, doctors and nurses, cleaners, Leeds West Indian Carnival performers. Leeds Rhino’s players James Peacock and Danny Mcguire make an appearance. So does the Look North crew. The list goes on. Illuminos must have been in a darkroom since August getting this footage together as every quarter of an hour the huge spectacle they project onto the Civic Hall will be different. I feel like I’m going to have the same ‘this is incredible I want to see it all, but it’s just so long’ feeling I had when I first witnessed Christian Marclay’s ‘The Clock’, but only time will tell. Oh hell, sorry about the pun.
Momentous will be projected onto Leeds Civic Hall between from the 3-5 October 2013 between 7:30pm and 10:30pm forming the centrepiece of the city’s ‘Light Night’ celebrations on 4th October.