CORRESPONDENCE 01 - SAVINDER BUAL & GABRIELLE HOAD
SAVINDER BUAL
@savinderbual www.savinderbual.com
Letchworth work - Sundial, True Time, Letchworth, (2021) wooden and brass folding ruler
Exeter work - Sundial, True Time, Exeter, (2021) wooden and brass folding ruler
‘Gabby and I started our conversations talking about time and space as a construct. Based on the position of Exeter and Letchworth we are technically 13 minutes apart. When the 24 hour clock replaced solar time Exeter resisted the change as did Bristol. Solar time is still termed True time, today.
My practice makes reference to engineering advancements and mechanical inventions from the 18th and 19th centuries, when a yearning for scientific discovery and a curiosity about the world helped fuel and justify colonial expansion.This period was inextricably linked to new ways of seeing, attempts to control the seas and the 24 hour clock replacing the sun as a marker of time.
Imagining myself as a cinema pioneer I explore the interplay between the moving and the still, creating work that sits between the pre-cinematic and the digital. My work although often playful, requests the viewer to look closely between the gaps.’
GABRIELLE HOAD
@gabbyhoad gabriellehoad.co.uk
Letchworth work - Two-handed timekeeper ̶ Letchworth and Exeter (Longitude -0.22703 and -3.542433) digital video, looped. 3 mins
Exeter work - Two-handed timekeeper ̶ Exeter and Letchworth (Longitude -3.542433 and -0.22703) digital video, looped. 3 mins
Two slightly different videos (mirror images of each other) with slightly different titles.
Exeter-based Gabby Hoad uses photography, moving image, sound, text and live actions to create works that are highly responsive to site and context and often invites contributions from both human and nonhuman collaborators.
During the mid-19th century, with the coming of the railways, many of Exeter’s public clocks had two minute-hands, one showing Railway Time (or GMT), the other Local Time, which was approximately 14 minutes behind by the sun. Two-handed timekeeper is derived from a recording of shadows moving across a playing field in Exeter on 14 July 2021. The footage has been split, superimposed and speeded up to make visible the solar time difference between Letchworth and Exeter.
“These works arose directly from conversations, research and experiments with @savinderbual. Building on a shared interest in scientific knowledge and its applications, we reflected together on human-made rules and scales of measurement in relation to the movement of the Earth. It was a truly productive collaboration that we hope will continue beyond this project.”