Atomic Hourglass
Atomic Hourglass | San Marino | 1996
concept
development
costruzione
project data
date: 1995 – 1996
client: Disarmament archives
object: Realization of an identification system for the campaign in favour of nuclear disarmament: Atomic hourglass, San Marino
size data:
Height 5.50 m
Diameter 3.00 m
project stage: Preliminary, definitive, executive project and art direction
The atomic hourglass has been conceived and realized like a probe, which is able to give information about a partially unknown world and which we are perhaps little aware of, but which involves the destiny of our daily life in a direct way.
The hourglass dialogues with the global scale of the planet and interacts with the user, communicating the aims of world disarmament in different languages and showing the foreseen trend according to international agreements (the display shows the decreasing number of nuclear warheads in real time, marked by the whisper of a flap of dove wings at each change). Fed by photovoltaic panels and autonomous as far as energy is concerned, it is programmed to live until 2004 and then be recycled and discontinued.
The atomic hourglass is mainly made of steel alloys and evolute plastic materials.