Sunpendulum
Encyclopedia
Sunpendulum is an art, science and technology project devised by Austria
n media artist
Kurt Hofstetter.
: "Inplusion" phase
Twelve video camera
s called "time-eyes" are connected to the internet
in twelve locations in twelve time zone
s around the Earth
, observing the sky twenty four hours per day, continuously creating a hypothetical "sun clock" which spans the planet.
Installations
Viewing the results: "Explosion" phase
→ Note: This section describes "pavilions" which have not been constructed or installed.
At a location to be determined within each time zone, twelve screens are intended to be arranged in a circle within a pavilion
meant to remain open for visitors twenty four hours per day. The screens, connected online with the time-eyes, transmit the images from the twelve time zones. As the earth rotates, the images transmitted by the time-eyes move within a pavilion's circle of screens where day and night may be vicariously experienced in parallel.
Each pavilion, a circular structure of twenty four pairs of half cylinders, each pair of which resembles in horizontal cross section the Hopi
symbol ( ) for universal brotherhood, is intended to allow twenty four points of entry for visitors while preventing local light from reaching the screens. An arrangement of rooftop solar cell
s is hypothesized to produce the necessary energy.
) and artists. Its primary tasks are ongoing technical developments which maintain the integrity of the project and its hardware and software.
cooperation.
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n media artist
New media art
New media art is a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology...
Kurt Hofstetter.
Concept
Watching the skyTwelve video camera
Video camera
A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in...
s called "time-eyes" are connected to the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
in twelve locations in twelve time zone
Time zone
A time zone is a region on Earth that has a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. In order for the same clock time to always correspond to the same portion of the day as the Earth rotates , different places on the Earth need to have different clock times...
s around the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
, observing the sky twenty four hours per day, continuously creating a hypothetical "sun clock" which spans the planet.
Installations
- 1999 MauiMauiThe island of Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands at and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is part of the state of Hawaii and is the largest of Maui County's four islands, bigger than Lānai, Kahoolawe, and Molokai. In 2010, Maui had a population of 144,444,...
, BermudaBermudaBermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
and GranadaGranadaGranada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...
- 2000 CairoCairoCairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
, New OrleansNew Orleans, LouisianaNew Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
and EnsenadaEnsenada, Baja CaliforniaEnsenada is a coastal city in Mexico and the third-largest city in Baja California. It is located south of San Diego on the Baja California Peninsula. The city is locally referred to as La Cenicienta del Pacífico, or, The Cinderella of the Pacific...
- 2001 AzoresAzoresThe Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
- 2002 DubaiDubaiDubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
- 2003 Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
- 2004 KolkataKolkataKolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
- 2005 TokyoTokyo, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
- 2006 Marshall IslandsMarshall IslandsThe Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...
Viewing the results
→ Note: This section describes "pavilions" which have not been constructed or installed.
Pavilion (structure)
In architecture a pavilion has two main meanings.-Free-standing structure:Pavilion may refer to a free-standing structure sited a short distance from a main residence, whose architecture makes it an object of pleasure. Large or small, there is usually a connection with relaxation and pleasure in...
meant to remain open for visitors twenty four hours per day. The screens, connected online with the time-eyes, transmit the images from the twelve time zones. As the earth rotates, the images transmitted by the time-eyes move within a pavilion's circle of screens where day and night may be vicariously experienced in parallel.
Each pavilion, a circular structure of twenty four pairs of half cylinders, each pair of which resembles in horizontal cross section the Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
symbol ( ) for universal brotherhood, is intended to allow twenty four points of entry for visitors while preventing local light from reaching the screens. An arrangement of rooftop solar cell
Solar cell
A solar cell is a solid state electrical device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect....
s is hypothesized to produce the necessary energy.
Kernel team
The kernel team consists of scientists (chiefly from the Institute of Computer Graphics and Algorithms at the Vienna University of TechnologyVienna University of Technology
Vienna University of Technology is one of the major universities in Vienna, the capital of Austria. Founded in 1815 as the "Imperial-Royal Polytechnic Institute" , it currently has about 26,200 students , 8 faculties and about 4,000 staff members...
) and artists. Its primary tasks are ongoing technical developments which maintain the integrity of the project and its hardware and software.
Collaboration partners
The collaboration partners are scientific and academic institutions which host the time-eye cameras, hardware and servers and participate in the project's international cross-culturalCross-cultural
cross-cultural may refer to*cross-cultural studies, a comparative tendency in various fields of cultural analysis*cross-cultural communication, a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate...
cooperation.
- University of HawaiiUniversity of HawaiiThe University of Hawaii System, formally the University of Hawaii and popularly known as UH, is a public, co-educational college and university system that confers associate, bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees through three university campuses, seven community college campuses, an employment...
and Maui Community CollegeMaui Community CollegeThe University of Hawai'i Maui College is a public, co-educational commuter college in Kahului, Hawaii on the island of Maui...
- Autonomous University of Baja California
- University of New OrleansUniversity of New OrleansThe University of New Orleans, often referred to locally as UNO, is a medium-sized public urban university located on the New Orleans Lakefront within New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It is a member of the LSU System and the Urban 13 association. Currently UNO is without a proper chancellor...
- Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute
- University of the AzoresUniversity of the AzoresThe University of the Azores , or commonly abbreviated as UAç, is the only public university in the Autonomous Region of the Azores, It was founded on January 9, 1976, two years after the Carnation Revolution that ended several decades of dictatorship in Portugal, but before the Portuguese Third...
- University of GranadaUniversity of GranadaThe University of Granada is a public university located in Granada, Spain that enrolls approximately 80,000 students. The university also has campuses in Ceuta and Melilla. Every year, over 2,000 European students enroll in the UGR through the Erasmus Programme, making it the most popular...
- Ain Shams UniversityAin Shams UniversityAin Shams University is an institute of higher education located in Cairo, Egypt. Founded in 1950, the university provides education at the undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate levels.-History:...
- Zayed UniversityZayed UniversityZayed University , established in 1998, is the newest of the three government sponsored higher educational institutions in the United Arab Emirates. The other two institutions are the Higher Colleges of Technology established in 1988 and the United Arab Emirates University established in 1976...
- Jadavpur UniversityJadavpur UniversityJadavpur University , is a premier educational and research institution in India.It is located in Kolkata, West Bengal and comprises two campuses - the main campus at Jadavpur and the new campus at Salt Lake...
- Hong Kong University of Science and TechnologyHong Kong University of Science and TechnologyThe Hong Kong University of Science and Technology is a public university located in Hong Kong. Established in 1991 under Hong Kong Law Chapter 1141 , it is one of the nine universities in Hong Kong.Professor Tony F. Chan is the president of HKUST...
- Kanazawa Institute of TechnologyKanazawa Institute of Technologyis an institution of higher learning in Japan. It is often called KIT, or for short.It is known for its unique educational policy that attaches importance to initiative of students...
- College of the Marshall IslandsCollege of the Marshall IslandsThe College of the Marshall Islands is a regionally accredited autonomous community college offering associate degree programs in liberal arts & sciences, business and information technology, elementary education, and nursing. It also offers high school equivalency, community extension, student...
External links
- Institute of Computer Graphics and Algorithms (ICGA) website.
- Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI) website.