Clock Basket No. 1

Written and Animated by Benny Lichtner

Based on the graphic designs of Michael Sumner

Bibliography

Here is an alphabetical list of some of the writings I found helpful for understanding contemporary time, and how we got here:

Aveni, Anthony. Empires of Time: Calendars, Clocks, and Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1989.

Bede. The Reckoning of Time. Translated by Faith Wallis. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999.

Bruton, Eric. The History of Clocks and Watches. New York : Rizzoli, 1979.

Colson, F.H. The Week: an essay on Origin and Development of the Seven-Day Cycle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926, https://archive.org/details/1926-colson-the-week.

Flusser, Vilém. "The Lever Strikes Back," in The Shape of Things. Translated by Anthony Mathews. Reaktion Books, 1999.

Le Guin, Ursula K. The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. Ignota, 2020.

Maestro, Betsy. The Story of Clocks and Calendars. HarperCollins, 2004.

Scharringhausen, Britt. "The Moon slows the Earth's rotation, but how fast was it spinning billions of years ago?" Ask an Astronomer, last updated July 18, 2015, http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/physics/37-our-solar-system/the-moon/the-moon-and-the-earth/147-the-moon-slows-the-earth-s-rotation-but-how-fast-was-it-spinning-billions-of-years-ago-intermediate.

Zerubavel, Eviatar. "The Benedictine Ethic and the Modern Spirit of Scheduling: on Schedules and Social Organization." Sociological Inquiry 50, no. 2 (1980): 157-169.

"Coordinated Universal Time," Wikipedia, accessed August 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time.

"Leap Second," Wikipedia, accessed August 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second.

Thank you

🕰️ I am really grateful for everyone who shared their thoughts about clocks and time with me over the last several months!

Special shout outs to Daniel, for supporting me with invaluable pdfs 📄, to everyone on the Berkeley Science & Technology Studies Working Group listserv, and to Margaret and Pat, for replying to a stranger's call for guidance ☎️, to Mai, for helping me to shape the text and write like a child 🐬, and to all the COMPOST editors for believing in my proposal and giving me a really rare opportunity to pursue it 😭. Thank you so much!

And a huge thank you to Michael for being unwaveringly encouraging and supportive, and welcoming my strange interpretations of his beautiful illustrations ⚫️⚪️. Take a look at burningbooks.org to see more of his and his partner Melody's creations!

Benny grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He likes playing, reading Vilém Flusser, roller-blading, and learning about animal behavior and the history of science and technology. He helps new media artists make shapes at New Art City.