aRT iNSTALLATION
Time Drift
Modern society’s system of time is built on precision and predictability. But Temporal Stream chooses to focus on what lies outside this structure—those subtle, individual, and unsynchronized temporal experiences.
The work imagines a domestic scenario, where beneath the seemingly rhythmic mechanics of timekeeping, lie personal perceptions, discrepancies, and the quiet passage of time.
Above, a rotating mechanism mimics the motion of a sundial, casting shifting shadows as a poetic trace of time. At the center, a round table mirrors the hands of a clock, reinterpreting the familiar language of everyday time through a softened, lyrical lens.
On the table, a mechanical hand taps gently and rhythmically on the glass surface with its index finger—a silent countdown, subtly evoking the sensation of waiting: the delays, the missed moments, and the unspoken words between people, shaped by their own sense of time.
From directly above, viewers see a circular layout reminiscent of a clock face. Twelve engraved plaques surround the installation, each etched with a poetic verse reflecting the emotional tension caused by time’s dissonance in human relationships. These minute discrepancies, invisible to any timepiece, are nonetheless deeply felt across lived experience.
Time Drift does not attempt to define time, but instead offers a more intuitive understanding: even within the same hour, each person may inhabit a completely different temporality. Time here is uneven, imperfectly shared—a vessel for emotion, and a quiet witness to distance, memory, and human connection.
Time Drift
Moments Cast in Shadow and Light
Poetics of an Ordinary Hour
The minute hand circles,
but no one arrives.
Still, the table waits.
Shadows stretch across the floor
like questions never asked,
quiet, but present.
The finger taps —
not out of impatience,
but out of memory.
Each face turned away
carries its own hour.
None align.
Time does not pass —
it folds,
softly, around what could have been.
A glass table,
twelve engraved silences,
holding what words cannot.
◇ Artist : Hsiangfu Chen
◇ Production Co. : Hsuan Huang
◇ Photography : Hsiangfu Chen
◇ Presented in 2024 SOMA Art Space Berlin