Perfection + Control.
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A big thank you to those who have already supported Solid State Watch. We never know
what how any project will be received until it is launched. And sincerely appreciate
and take to heart the support and feedback we have received.
Solid State Watch casts the insides of a digital watch
permanently in resin. And lately we've been thinking about what it feels like
to bring this timepiece into the world.
This project asks us to accept and welcome
a new kind of relationship to timekeeping + technology.
One where we deliberately relinquish 2 things technology seeks
to afford us: perfection + control. And invites us to take pause at
something worth looking at, the performance of a digital timepiece over time.
What we see will not be perfect, and will involve a conscious surrender
to whatever deficits it lends. An act we actually do everyday with our phones and laptops,
but usually without our direct consent.
Maybe this is scary, but we've found comfort in putting it on
every morning. So much in life we cannot control, but
we nonetheless attach to those things an illusion of control.
This thing just is, and eventually won't be, and we've signed up.
Something about that feels pretty beautiful.
A look back.
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We've been remembering a few of our favorite artworks. Below is Untitled (Perfect Lovers) 1989 by Felix Gonzalez-Torres. It
is two off the shelf, battery powered clockes placed side by side and touching. Eventually they will fall out of sync and one of them will stop working.
And here is Perfect Lovers (forever) 2002 by Tobias Wong. Similary to Gonzalez-Torres, Wong placed two identical battery powered clocks side by side, however these ones fitted with atomic radio receivers to keep time accurately up to 1 second every 1 million years.
The context Gonzalez-Torres and Wong created these pieces
were different from each other and radically different
from what we are doing now.
But there is something profound and poetic within the relationship between
the human body and the technological body that continues to inspire us.
With love + hugs,
Che-Wei + Taylor