packaging as content

March 3, 2010

Packaging Clocks as “Life-Controlling Machines”

From Tim Hawkinson’s “Secret Sync” project: a Coke can and a Colgate Toothpaste tube, made to function as clocks. 

… on the tube of toothpaste, the paste extrusion shows the minutes and the open cap shows the hours; the pull tab on the Coke can counts the minute and the sipping hole counts the hour.

…. Humans have an external relationship with clocks, because they rely on them to maintain the patterns and schedules of their lives. The purpose of a clock is not to make humans rethink their reality, but to preserve it. Yet, Hawkinson’s clocks push these conceptual boundaries: with his own hands he alters the purpose of household objects, elevating them to powerful, life-controlling machines.

Tim Hawkinson: The Mechanical/Scientific Approach to Hybrid Art
(Metapedia entry on Tim Hawkinson’s work)

(After the fold: another photo of the Coke-can-clock, a packaging-peanuts-bag-clock and an entirely different type of container…)

Below, a video of Hawkinson’s 2007 “Gimbled Klein Basket”—(a rotating, Klein-bottle-shaped bamboo basket)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

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