New York Time Rule-77 Minutes, 2023 , Conrad Shawcross

Plywood, steel, color rope

Size closed height 10.8cm x width 80cm x depth 10.8cm

Size opened height 10.2cm x width 80cm x depth 22.2cm

New York Time Rule-77 Minutes is a piece of rope, created in 77 minutes, spun by Conrad Shawcross’ The Nervous Systems (Inverted), which was installed in 590 Madison Avenue, New York, in 2010.

Hanging 50 feet above the ground, the intricate structure of axles, gears, and drive shafts spanned 25 feet in diameter, and radiated outwards from symmetrically arranged hubs; once in motion, its constellation of coloured spools revolved in orbit reciprocally and begun to twine their threads.

New York Time Rule-77 Minutes represents a way of measuring time in terms of space, and vice versa. A light year, the distance light travels in one year, is too great a distance for the human brain to apprehend, but a length of rope that one can see, created in a human time scale, allows the equation of time and distance to be much more easily grasped.

Donated by Conrad Shawcross

Website: www.conradshawcross.com
Instagram: conradshawcross