TimePortal
An Art Clock in the Mondrian Style
A little history: An art clock in the Mondrian
style was first conceived of in 1973, just two
years after the Model I, ”dot-clock” was
designed. At that time the technology
to do a good job without too many com-
promises was too difficult. In 2007 Wayne
Husted came up with the TimeArt design
and I, Barry Gamble, saw how to imple-
ment it with laser cutting and program-
ming. A lot of what I learn could be applied
to the Mondrian concept.
Among the difficulties that needed to be
overcome was lamp life, power consump-
tion, the need for too many very expensive
injection molds, and wanting the display to
vary. Light Emitting Diodes solved the first
two problems. Laser cutting of parts and
microprocessors fixed the last problems. So
here is
TimePortal
, a sophisticated, playful
conversation piece, art work.
Enjoy!
Getting to know the new fun in your life.
When you first plug it in, it should have the
correct time. It was set to your time zone
before we packed it up.
Reading the Time
The Time Portal has 3 ways of displaying the
time. It has two Mondrian ways, Random,
or Traditional hours, and the TimeArt meth-
od. First I'll explain the Random Hour Mode.
It is the hardest to read the time quickly,
but perhaps the most fun. You count the
number of segments with the same color.
The warm colors, Red, and Yellow indicate
the hours.
The
Red
segments are 5 hours each.
The
Yellow
segments are 1 hour each.
segments are 1 hour each.
So 1 Red and 2 Yellow is 7 o’clock.
Or, 2 Red and 1 Yellow is 11 o’clock.
The cool colors Blue and Green are the
minutes. The
B l u e
segments are 10 min-
utes each, so 3 blue are 30 minutes. The
G r e e n
segments are a little trickier. One
segment, the circle, is 5 minutes, and any
other segments are 1 minute each. For
example, 3 Blues is 30 minutes. If the circle
is Green then it is 5 minutes. If two other
segments are green, then the time is 37
minutes. The location of the segments is not
important. Only the circle, has the special
meaning of 5 minutes when it turns green.
Some Examples
30 +5 +2 = 37
minutes
3:21
8:07
10:30
12:59
