Historically, the Black Forest region is closely linked to the clock industry and is famous worldwide for its handcrafted cuckoo clocks. This iconic symbol of the Black Forest has become a global phenomenon since the 18th century. Cuckoo clocks have been exported all over the world and are familiar to almost all Black Forest tourists. In recent decades, technological developments have transferred clocks into the digital sphere and thereby laid the foundation for this project.
The sculpture, measuring over seven metres in height, reflects the Black Forest’s clockmaking history and takes up one of its icons: the cuckoo clock. The clock is depicted as a pixelated abstraction with an empty clock face and can only be fully experienced through an augmented reality app.
The time and cuckoo can be seen on the half and full hour as usual. However, in this case the digital ‘cuckoo’ consists of hundreds of video recordings of cuckoo clocks made by people from over 30 countries around the world. As such, the sculpture opens a digital door to the global phenomenon of the cuckoo clock by bringing together worldwide versions of the Black Forest export product in one place. The work is also a reference to the parasitic habits of the natural cuckoo, which lays its eggs in the nests of other birds – here, however, the eggs of others are laid in a digital nest.
More information https://weltgroesste-kuckucksuhr.com.
Exhibitions
◦ Digital is better, Municipal Gallery Villingen-Schwenningen, DE, 2021
◦ German Clock Museum Furtwangen, DE, 2024