Timecasting (I)
Mixed media
500 cm x 500cm
Kinetic drawing installation
Laing Art Gallery
Newcastle upon Tyne
2013
Timecasting is a large-scale kinetic drawing installation by Newcastle based artist, Nick Kennedy. Developed from the artist's wider interests in the notions of chance, order, control and in particular, the role of the systems in our understanding and perception of the world, Timecasting can be seen as an experiment in recording time and making it visible through a mechanised drawing process.
The installation consists of a number of autonomous drawing devices, arranged on the gallery floor, growing week by week to mirror the passage of time. Operating continuously throughout the three month exhibition period, each of these Timecasts will trace out a delicate graphite form on the paper it rests on. Like the slow erosion of rock in a river bed over millions of years, the process of accumulation is organic. Nearly eight million seconds will pass in this time and with each one tiny, barely perceptible marks will register. Invisible in the moment, these marks gradually build to reveal order from apparent chaotic movement.