Keeping Time (2002)

“Keeping Time” is an ambient media installation, which uses real-time weather data to evoke a sense of global interconnectedness. Five flickering lights hang suspended over small LCD (liquid crystal display) panels. The flicker rate of each light corresponds to the temperature report for one city, which changes periodically as planes land at Dublin Airport. “Keeping Time” retrieves the first five planes scheduled to land at Dublin Airport, determines which city they are arriving from, and logs the weather data for that city. The LCD panels indicate which city is represented for each light. “Keeping Time” allows visitors of the Digital Hub to tune into the relationships between the global and the local, experiencing a sense of unity as external processes are harnessed into an intimate reflection of increasing interdependencies.

Inspired by the global movement of people and large scale networks of transportation and travel Keeping Time is a personal welcome to the city of Dublin from one of its newest inhabitants. From the global (the broad network of airplane routes and hubs) to the local (the node at dublin airport) Keeping Time provides a sweetly optimistic remimder of the physical processes which increasingly bring people closer together.

Keeping Time was installed as part of Exhibit 1 @ The Digital Hub in Dublin, Ireland.
January 6th – March 3rd 2003