Mark Allen Soderstrom

Watch for the Southern Hemisphere, 2003
Glass, Ink, lacquer, leather, paper, metal

2 1/4" x 2" x 1/2"

 

 

Sundials were the most primitive of early nature driven timekeepers. Their utilization dates back to at least 3500 BCE Egypt. The term watch originally referred to the observance of one of the thirty periods of the Egyptian day. This region’s geographic positioning north of the equator caused the sun to cast shadows in a right-turn arc. This advancement indicator was emulated in later clock designs giving us the clock face of today. Should this mechanical timekeeping technology have evolved in the Southern Hemisphere, however, we would have clocks that appear as the reverse image of what we are accustomed to today.