Clock Time by Rosalind Krauss

Clock Time by Rosalind Krauss.

The main point that can be extracted from this reading is how Marclay has used the medium of ‘technical support’, as well as synchronicity to enhance the eclipse of his video works, such as The Clock. To further explain this, Krauss has categorized the idea of ‘time’ into several subdivisions.

The experience of viewing the film is made up of literal ‘reel time’, ‘real time’, and ‘now time’. Each element of ‘time’ either absorbs the viewer into the suspense of the film, or removes them so that they can establish their own ‘real time’ and be brought back to the ‘now present’. This is achieved through the characters in the film that are constantly expecting a tragedy: a bomb explosion, or a missile attack. It is within this fast moving pace, that Marclay has used the ‘cutaway’ of the scenes as the plot.

Within the length of the The Clock, the technique of ‘synch time’ (the projection of 24 frames a second, synchronized with the physio-psychological facts of optics) have been used in order to allow the film to flow rapidly, despite being created from multiple different slides, with a strong cut off point.

Opposing this is the ‘phi-effect’, which is the after image, established through the synchronization of the projected frames and the process of optical intake. Regardless of the ease in which the individual clips flow, the viewer will still hold on to the after image for a moment into the duration of the next slide.  

The ‘technical support’ Marclay has used, has becomes a new medium, in which he has used commercial sound film and has induced ‘pure synchronicity.’

Another interesting point that Krass has raised is how Marclay has harmonized the ‘reel time’ into our ‘real time’, allowing the viewer to be fully engaged with the film, and sense that these events could happen at any moment.