A Crack in the Hourglass

“A Crack in the Hourglass” is a transitory “anti-monument” in response to the pandemic and the ways it has halted public rituals of mourning. In this participatory artwork, a modified robotic plotter deposits grains of hourglass sand onto a black surface to recreate the images of those lost due to COVID-19. After each portrait is completed, the surface tilts and the same sand is recycled into the next portrait, echoing the collective and ongoing nature of the pandemic.

Soon, it will no longer be possible to delegate one’s death to others. It will no longer be possible for that person to die in our place. Not only will we condemned to assume our own demise, unmediated, but farewells will be few and far between. The hour of autophagy is upon us and, with it, the death of community, as there is no community worthy of its name in which saying one’s last farewell, that is remembering the living at the moment of death, becomes impossible.?
—Achille Mbembe, “The Universal Right to Breath,” translated by Carolyn Shread (Critical Inquiry 47, Winter 2021) Monuments and Anti-Monuments

General info

Spanish name:

La Arena Fuera del Reloj

Year of creation:

2020

Technique:

Sand, glass, robotic platform, cameras, computers, OpenFrameworks software, lights, anodized aluminum base, 3-D printed polymer head, electronic circuit, tubes, funnels, plastic valves, website

Dimensions:

28 x 32 x 78.5 in / 71 x 82 x 199 cm

Keywords:

indoor, ephemeral, robotic, interactive, sculpture

Edition:

1 Edition, 1 AP

Exhibitions

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: A Crack In the Hourglass, An Ongoing COVID-19 Memorial, Van Every / Smith Galleries at Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina, United States, 2024.
Brooklyn Talks: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Sekou Cooke, and Paul Farber, Brooklyn Museum, New York City, New York, United States, 2022.
Imagine Repair, The Zip Code Memory Project, New York City, New York, United States, 2022.
Parsons Fine Arts Visiting Artist Lecture Series, Parsons The New School for Design, New York City, New York, United States, 2022.
The Zip Code Memory Project: Practices of Justice and Repair: Reparative Memory, Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Social Difference, New York City, New York, United States, 2022.
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: A Crack in the Hourglass, An Ongoing COVID-19 Memorial, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, United States, 2021 - 2022.
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: La Arena Fuera del Reloj, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, México, 2020 - 2021.