Christian Marclay’s The Clock (2010) is an ambitious 24-hour montage stitched together from feature films and TV shows. Each clip, ranging from a split second to a few minutes, takes place during the time of the day at which it plays. Over the next few months, I will attempt to see all twenty-four hours at the Tate Modern in London, documenting the experience in a way as haphazard as the fractured experience of watching the work itself.

Voyage au bout de la nuit

Part 6 of 6 of this series. I wrote this article after viewing 18:39–21:55 (3 hours, 16 minutes) on 11 January 2019. Seen: 18 hours 29 minutes. I will be unable to see the remaining 5 hours and 31 minutes.

Read Part 1: Introduction, in which I discuss my initial excitement about the return of The Clock.

Read Part 2: Matineé, in which I reflect on familiarity, recognition, tension, time’s passage, simultaneity, and death.

Read Part 3: Graveyard Shift, in which I stay up all night and misidentify noir.

Read Part 4: Interstice, in which I ponder the expectations set by Hollywood continuity style.

Read Part 5: Sunrise, in which I link up The Clock‘s morning montages.

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It has been nearly a month since I’ve written on The Clock, mostly because I’ve been drafting a novel. Since last I wrote, The Clock itself has left London and found a new home at a museum in Melbourne,

The experience of seeing The Clock, even after all these hours, remains surreal, as perhaps the best cinema always is. The final night that I went, there weren’t such recognisable features as there were in the morning hours, and I found its impressions less distinctive, the sequences more obscure. But maybe that was just my own fading vigour.

As I wrote above, my final tally, for now at least, will remain at the 18.5 hour mark. I think this is a respectable amount of conceptual art to have seen over a few months, though I’m still in awe of Ari Haque who did all 24 hours in one go.

Continue reading →

Christian Marclay’s The Clock (2010) is an ambitious 24-hour montage stitched together from feature films and TV shows. Each clip, ranging from a split second to a few minutes, takes place during the time of the day at which it plays. Over the next few months, I will attempt to see all twenty-four hours at the Tate Modern in London, documenting the experience in a way as haphazard as the fractured experience of watching the work itself.

Rosy-fingered Dawn

Part 5 of this series. I wrote this article after viewing 6:02–10:18 (4 hours, 16 minutes) on 2 December 2018. Seen: 15 hours 13 minutes. Remaining: 8 hours 47 minutes.

Read Part 1: Introduction, in which I discuss my initial excitement about the return of The Clock.

Read Part 2: Matineé in which I reflect on familiarity, recognition, tension, time’s passage, simultaneity, and death.

Read Part 3: Graveyard Shift in which I stay up all night and misidentify noir.

Read Part 4: Interstice in which I ponder the expectations set by Hollywood continuity style.

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The 2nd of December 2018 marked what I thought was my final opportunity to see the nocturnal hours of The Clock, at least in its current run in London—now, due to popular demand, you can also see it this weekend.

At the start of November I had stayed overnight until 5:35am, so I needed to arrive before that time. So on a cold Sunday morning, at the beginning of December, I dutifully awoke at 3:52, just as one of my flatmates was returning from a night out. I filled a flask with coffee and walked down to the Tate, since my normal transport to the Tate Modern (the 4 bus) doesn’t run at night. The walk was beautiful and surreal. I arrived at 5:03am.

Continue reading →

Christian Marclay’s The Clock (2010) is an ambitious 24-hour montage stitched together from feature films and TV shows. Each clip, ranging from a split second to a few minutes, takes place during the time of the day at which it plays. Over the next few months, I will attempt to see all twenty-four hours at the Tate Modern in London, documenting the experience in a way as haphazard as the fractured experience of watching the work itself.

Meshes of the Afternoon

Part 4 of this series. I wrote this article after viewing 17:02–17:55 (53 minutes) on 4 November 2018 and 16:30–17:02 (32 minutes) on 8 November 2018. Seen: 11 hours 57 minutes. Remaining: 12 hours 3 minutes.

Read Part 1: Introduction, in which I discuss my initial excitement about the return of The Clock.

Read Part 2: Matineé in which I reflect on familiarity, recognition, tension, time’s passage, simultaneity, and death.

Read Part 3: Graveyard Shift in which I stay up all night and misidentify noir.

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A few weeks ago I posted about my ill-advised all-nighter. Since then, Ari Haque at the Guardian has outdone me, and seen all twenty-four hours in a single sitting! She observes many of the same things that I did in earlier instalments, including anxiety about the time of day one can in conscience begin drinking, the value of timepieces, the strange habit of steak for lunch, and the relationship between time and death.

Continue reading →

Christian Marclay’s The Clock (2010) is an ambitious 24-hour montage stitched together from feature films and TV shows. Each clip, ranging from a split second to a few minutes, takes place during the time of the day at which it plays. Over the next few months, I will attempt to see all twenty-four hours at the Tate Modern in London, documenting the experience in a way as haphazard as the fractured experience of watching the work itself.

Insomnia

Part 3 of this series. I wrote this article after viewing 23:23–05:35 (6 hours 12 min) on 4 November 2018. Seen: 10 hours 27 minutes. Remaining: 13 hours 33 minutes.

Read Part 1: Introduction, in which I discuss my initial excitement about the return of The Clock.

Read Part 2: Matineé in which I reflect on familiarity, recognition, tension, time’s passage, simultaneity, and death.

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It took while to put my thoughts together for the 2 hours and 40 minutes I saw a few weeks ago; last weekend I saw six hours straight, so this has been more than a little intimidating to write. However, I’m glad to have finished most of the night shift. Continue reading →

Christian Marclay’s The Clock (2010) is an ambitious 24-hour montage stitched together from feature films and TV shows. Each clip, ranging from a split second to a few minutes, takes place during the time of the day at which it is played. Over the next few months, I will be attempting to see all twenty-four hours at the Tate Modern in London, documenting the experience in a way as haphazard as the fractured experience of watching the work itself.

Watching the Clock

The Clock does not ask for the time and then steal your watch; it asks for you to watch then steals your time.

Part 2 of this series. This article was written after viewing 11:21–13:06 (1 hour 45 min) and 14:30–15:25 (55 min) on 24 October 2018, for a total of 2 hours 40 minutes. Seen: 4 hours 15 minutes. Remaining: 19 hours 45 minutes.

Read Part 1: Introduction, in which I talk about my initial excitement about the return of The Clock.

Since my last instalment, I read an excellent New Yorker piece from 2012 which my friend had recommended, and to which I’ll refer throughout. I was excited to learn that Marclay had frequented the late Kim’s Video in New York, whose voluminous collection I visited in the distant past, and about which another excellent article was written (removed from The Village Voice’s website but fortuitously preserved by the Internet Archive). Continue reading →

Christian Marclay’s The Clock (2010) is an ambitious 24-hour montage stitched together from feature films and TV shows. Each clip, ranging from a split second to a few minutes, takes place during the time of the day at which it is played. Over the next few months, I will be attempting to see all twenty-four hours at the Tate Modern in London, documenting the experience in a way as haphazard as the fractured experience of watching the work itself.

A First Glance at The Clock

Part 1 of this series. This article was written after viewing 13:55–14:30 of The Clock on 16 October 2018.

See also Part 2 in which I watch around 3 hours of the afternoon.

The Set-Up

A few weeks ago, on the 27th September, I discovered (by accident) that The Clock was back. My sister was visiting from New York, and on our obligatory walk along the Southbank I thought I’d show her the architecture of the Tate Modern. I had explicitly planned not to spend much time there, as we were on a bit of a schedule, but just to peek into its formidable space. When I saw posters for The Clock, however, I became very excited, and asked her whether she would be willing to watch it for a few minutes. Naturally she acquiesced, as I had been the one insisting that we ought not to stay long. In the end we stayed an hour. I was excited, and she liked it too. The Clock was back! Continue reading →