Olaf Nicolai :
Neunkirchen Landesberufsschule

A digital two identical school clocks have been mounted on the roof of the new building for the regional vocational college in Neunkirchen. The clocks are six metres long and one metre high and have an eight-digit display. The clock goes well beyond what would generally be expected of it, and measures time with extreme precision by showing the tenths and hundreds of the second. As pragmatic, functional and as casually positioned as the timepiece with its numeric digital display and its aluminium casing appears, so relentlessly merciless is the statement it makes: Here time is running visibly away – and all the faster, the more precisely it can be measured. The artist provides a succinct scientific explanation of the symbolism underlying the racing LED display. The representation of units of measure that are necessary in certain of the subjects taught at the school are no longer tied to the 'direct' experiential dimension of human perception. This, in turn, has an effect – significantly visible in particular in schools – on the conditioning of awareness itself. Olaf Nicolai is known for combining the scientific with the civilising. Here he outlines the complete paradox of accelerating a contemporary society dominated by time, which itself has become so fast and is incapable of perceiving the fact.
(Cornelia Offergeld)