Time Difference

2018

Sound Installation, Biscuit tins

"This is Shanghai", City Council, Cunard Building, Liverpool, UK.

The sound installation Time Difference is constructed from 168 vintage biscuit tins from the 1960s and 1970s. Rising to a height of fourteen tiers, the work is composed of twelve biscuit tins on each tier, referring to the twelve hour markers of a clock.

Through an internal mechanical design, the installation generates a force of contraction within itself, causing the tinplate surfaces of the biscuit tins to vibrate, twist, and produce sound. The sounds are slightly out of tune, as if time itself were slowly flowing past.

The sound is designed to occur from four directions within the installation, sounding clockwise in accordance with the passage of time, like the four quarters of a clock: the hour, the quarter hour, the half hour, and the three-quarter hour. This time is Shanghai time, while the audience experiences this distant time in Liverpool, United Kingdom.