contemporary monkey

Birmingham's Water Works Tower

In the middle of a rare dead-level residential Birmingham are two narrow brick towers thrust into the sky, six floors in height, both called Water Works Towers.  Water works towers I’ve seen in other cities around the world are usually shaped like this, tall, narrow, mysterious, and I can’t figure out why.  I guess it’s compulsory that a water works tower is made to look like a fireman’s hose.

As it happens, this structure is the perfect void for an exhibit put on by the Ikon Gallery people, in a place that isn’t in the Ikon.  What’s more, the demonstration here is mostly audio.  The producer of the idea, Yukio Fujimoto is a Japanese conceptual artist working in sound, with an interest in how we humans hear (it’s already sounding like navel gazing, but stay with me).  This display is one of those rare times when conceptual art is more hit than miss.  This is not art considered to be inspirational, but after experiencing the show, I’m glad someone did it.  It’s such a little kid thing to do.

IT, is four floors of the waterworks building with over 1000 battery operated clocks ticking away in their own time universe.  Each clock is the same: cheap, small, square-shaped, black face, red hands that move with a stutter through each tick-tock.  Each of the floors is the same as well: small, concrete, 2 or 3 windows, hexagonal-shaped, about eight feet across. To get to each floor takes some mountain climbing expertise on narrowing stairs, but the constant ticking tells you that there really is only one way to go: UP.  It’s hard not to be curious.

probably 1000 clocks

I nearly missed the lone beating clock in the first room.  In fact I almost stepped on it.  Heavy breathing from the stair climb disguised the barely audible noise of the singular clock. Through cracks in the ceiling, however, I could make out the beating from the upper floors.  Floor 2 consisted of nothing but 10 clocks laid out in one line, while the third floor held a grid of 100 neatly aligned units, 10 x 10.  Finally the top, and last, floor incorporated 1000 of the now familiar boxes beetling away, lined up in as good a grid as you’re going to get inside a cramped tower room.  I learned later that the cheery young staff safely tucked away on the ground floor have to re-align the clocks every morning because each day the clocks push themselves around via the jerking movement of the second hand.

I wouldn’t call this time/ticking/audio experience necessarily inspirational; it doesn’t grip you with creative energy, but it’s a pretty cool thing to see nonetheless.  Maybe it does inspire you to be aware of yourself.  Regardless of the number of clocks vying for your attention, you could always make out a rhythm.  The gallery’s press release asserts that when you get to the top, the overwhelming number of clicking clocks results in a white noise of sound.  The release also insists that the clocks’ audible movement reminds us of our own lives ticking down to the ultimate end of our time.  I thought no such thing.  I wish there were a hundred floors more;  I’d love to hear what millions and billions of clocks sound like pressed into a limited space.  Yet another reason not to read the literature of galleries’ marketing departments before seeing or experiencing the work yourself.

If you linger at 1000 clock room for awhile longer, you’re also turned on to a treat of visual experience.  When you do that thing with your eyes by not staring at any one clock, like kids do when they begin to cross their eyes, your peripheral vision is obtusely aware of multiple second hands oscillating to their own beat.  It’s a little bit like standing in a room full of jumping beetles.  Don’t worry, I held myself back from stepping on anything, clock or beetle, in the top floor.

As I left the building, I was keenly aware of the environment where the tower finds itself, propelled out of its residential surroundings.  I was thinking it would be devastating to the neighbours if all 1,111 alarms were armed for the same time each morning.  Again, not inspirational, but I hope somebody does it.