Time Sails

SODEXI is an air freight company. Among its complex, it includes a long interior lighted street. The artist concept was to launch a series of sails to conquer our planet. The vertical cables would act as meridians.The work is a 20 m. long mobile. It is made up of ropes with fiber optic cables on which the artist secured 12 sails of curved Plexiglas. There are two light “events.” First some colors appear on the sails, creating a spectrum, through stained glass. Then, an amber light fills the sails, marking the corresponding hour.
Location: Sodexi, Storage 4. in Roissy CDG airport
Installation: 2004

The Twelve Directions of Time

Does time have a direction? This is what this work seems to suggest.A series of cables made of optic fibers combine to create a column that is 11 meters high. Twelve glass arrows pierce the column, marking the hours in different directions.Minutes are represented by a point of light which moves up each arrow until it reaches the top. When it does, the hour has gone, and it is up to the next arrow to become animated and follow a similar course. This way, along this scale, time takes shape, runs and reaches its goal, only to be reborn again, and continue its endless race.
Location: Alcatel Company Headquarter, Paris.
Installation: 1998

The Arrow of the Time

The Arrow of the Time Could the time be an arrow moving unrelentingly into the space ? And us, are we, just for a very short time, the passengers of this arrow?
Materials: Resin, brass, red leds and ropes
Dimensions: 1,20 m spread, 3 m height

Sun and Moon

Since the beginning, time has been based on both the sun and the moon. “Sun and Moon” is a tribute to this couple. Principle: The hours (represented by 3 LEDs) are moving on the central arc and the minutes on the exterior one.
Materials: sand-blasted glass, silver numbers, red LEDs
Dimensions: 21 cm x 21 cm

Dialogue with the Time

At the same moment the written word and the reader are joined as two entities in a dialogue under the eye of time. Like a hourglass which does not stop filling, twelve hours fill one after the other in the central part of the clock.
Materials: magnificent work of fine gritting on glass. Red or amber LED
Dimensions: 50 cm x 50 cm

Past and Future

Here is a time marker in which past and future are in confrontation. Is it the past that shrinks away, while future grows, or the opposite? And what actually is the present? May be we should think of a time funnel traversed by a myriad of points of light through a multitude of stainless steel screens.The goal is the discovery of time!
Location: At Alcatel Company in Vélisy.
Size: 1m.50 Installation: 2004

The Rise of Time

This work celebrates the very first of all time-keepers: the sun, that marks the beginning of time. Principle: the central disk contains 60 seconds. As the last second goes dark, a new minute, located on the ark, lights up. Each hour is one of the sun rays.
Materials: sand-blasted and carved glass, red and gold LEDs, wood or stone frame
Dimensions: 50 cm x 50 cm

The Waterclock (The Clepsydre)

Water clock also called This was Alainpers’ first monumental project. Since the beginning of time, man has been involved in trying to perfect the measuring of time. Early on, nature served as a measure of time, and precision was not a concern. It is only in recent centuries that being able to precisely measure time has been indispensable. At the bottom and in the center one sees an Egyptian hieroglyph that signifies Water Clock (Clepsydre). In the center, a water clock that rotates every hour. Its precision is only relative, and is influenced by temperature. In those days, an absolute precise time was not necessary. At the top right, one can see a radio antenna. It serves to synchronize the system by receiving signals from an atomic clock.
Location: Entrance yard of the College Malmaison in Rueil, France.
Dimensions: 3.30 m x 2 m
Installation: 1992

Eclipse

Always searching for new ways of showing time, Alainpers has created this clock with two discs fixed one upon the other. One is made of glass, the other of wood, with light marking the time in between. Principle: The seconds run around the glass disc releasing one minute at each turn. The hours are in a lighter color.
Materials: Etched glass and silver numbers. Orange color LEDs
Dimensions: 40 cm diameter

The 12 Universes

“12 Universes” was originally conceived as a glass and ebony disc in which the time will drop, time that takes us all the day long into 12 both similar and different countries and the position ot the sun at the equator.
Dimensions: 70 cm diameter

Midday Somewhere on Earth

The design of both the outlines of the continents and of the time zones is so complex that it seems to be an abstract picture enhanced there by the sand-blasted glass. This picture shows the hour in different countries and the position of the sun at the equator level.
Dimensions: 100 x 60 cm

The OPEC Clock

This work has been especially created for the 3rd OPEC Summit which took place in Riyadh in November 2007. The idea was to create a link between the members of the Organization and the rest of the world showing the hour in each country and the place of the sun on earth. 105 copies has been made.
Materials: engraved brass and gold, crystal foot with gold leaves from Murano, amber leds, 12 watches. Jewel-case
Dimensions: Diameter 70 cm