SCULPTURE / ANNAMIEKE ENGELBRECHT
GNOMON
A Non-Essential Approximation of Time
Time, bent out of shape.
The hours, days and years we use to organise our lives arise from Earth’s rotation and its orbit around a star. Gnomon asks what happens when these familiar measures are placed within a universe whose timescales exceed our own.
The sculpture takes its name from the needle of an ancient sundial, an instrument that translates cosmic motion into light and shadow. Here, that geometry is bent and fractured. The form recalls a measuring device while refusing the reliability its appearance promises.
An instrument for uncertainty.
The distortion responds to the relativity of time: its dependence on gravity and motion. Reflective surfaces and intersecting planes bring the question into physical space, shifting as the viewer moves.
Gnomon presents timekeeping as a framework for orientation, shaped by circumstance and scale. The object looks purposeful, yet cannot perform the task we expect of it.
