Paul Ramírez Jonas
Artist in the Public Realm









Echo, 2000




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MATERIALS: 10 bells, 100 meters apart, aligned along a kilometer.


    A clock and bell mechanism that chimes in the hours sits on the roof of the Wanas castle, in southern Sweden. The bell rings on the hour and 'counts' the hours with its chiming. I traced a line one kilometer long by placing ten bells a hundred meters apart starting at the castle and crossing the grounds. Every time the castle bell rings (lets say four times at four), the first bell repeats the chime (four rings), after a short delay the next bell down the line repeats the chime, and so on. Thus every hour, the sound retraces the line. The piece gives time a spatial dimension: you can hear the hours approaching, they are upon you and finally they recede. The bells are autonomous points relying on solar panels and batteries for power and wireless transmitters to communicate with each other.