Quadratime version 1.0 is on air since October 2010.
Many thanks to all participants, developers and friends.
Quadratime is an abstract media artwork and experimental time display.
Quadratime offers an alternative perception of time and is the first multimedia artwork especially developed for the iPhone/iPod and iPad.
Time doesn’t elapse. The impression of time “passing by” is manmade. Quadratime distances itself from a purely linear perception of time and allows the user to perceive time as an area or a picture. ...
Quadratime translates a static picture into an endless abstract film. Emanating from Kazimir Malevich’s legendary painting “Black Square”, the film generates perpetual movement through a sequence of individual pictures. The degree of abstraction reached by Malevich is brought into the present using technical possibilities. Furthermore, the basic square form corresponds exactly to the smallest digital unit of image representation, the pixel, while the contrast between black and white is a direct translation of the binary foundation of digital technology.
Quadratime’s basic time unit is predictable and alike for all people; the day. The black square area represents the duration of one day. All other units result as a division of the basic square into four equal square parts. The white square area denotes the present quarter of the day. In the first quarter of the day the white square is to the upper left, in the second quarter to the upper right, in the third to the lower right and in the fourth quarter of the day to the lower left. Thus a tangible image representing the respective part of the day appears four times a day.
Further divisions of a similar nature follow, enabling the perception of movement. In the process, each current square is marked with the opposite color of the primary level. Thus a unique picture evolves for every time of the divided day, made up of alternating black and white squares systematically changing into each other. A mathematical fractal.
Existing time measurement assumes that time is linear and principally shows the present time. Quadratime understands time as not immediately between the past and the future. The two dimensional representation depicts both experienced, as well as not yet experienced time. The dimension Time itself becomes multi dimensional — in tangible terms, it becomes an area. Numerical breakdown of the pattern, or in other words, the naming of a particular time of the day, is still possible: as in “let’s meet at 32 34” or “see you later, in the fourth quarter!”
Quadratime’s fractal system is almost infinitely expandable into smaller or larger time periods. The portrayable time is only limited by the size of the medium in which it should be presented. Using the iPhone zoom function, the day can be zoomed into or out of. The minimum time period available is 1/1.048.576 of a day, which roughly equates to tenth of a second. The maximum time period available for the QT1.0 version is 1.048.576, or about 2873 years.
The fictional starting point of Quadratime is at 0.00 (Petrograd time) on the 19th December, 1915, as a reference to Malevich and the time and place of the exhibition opening in which Black Square was first presented. Quadratime was first presented in 2004 at the “Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie” in Karlsruhe as part of the exhibition “Algorithmic Revolution - on the History of Interactive Art”. There are four differing tailor made special editions of Quadratime and one exclusive edition, that each can only be bought once.
Many thanks to all participants, developers and friends.
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