Artist unveils giant clock as art installation

A leading artist has transformed a well-known London landmark into a giant clock as part of an art project. Conrad Shawcross mounted "Timepiece" at the Roundhouse in the north London district of Camden. The new installation uses the early Victorian architecture of the Roundhouse, which was built as a railway locomotive depot at the very beginning of the railway age, and later became a bonded warehouse for a famous London gin company and which has been a major arts venue for more than 40 years. The Roundhouse itself is a huge circular brick building about 20 meters high, whose circular main hall is held up by 24 cast iron pillars, which work well with Shawcross's giant timepiece suspended from the roof. "I wanted to turn back to a primeval celestial experience when we were more nomadic and lived as farmers, finding our way by the sun," Shawcross told Xinhua before the installation opened to the public on Thursday. The timepiece looks like a giant, four-meter long Swiss Army knife, from which "blades" glide slowly outwards driven by cogs and motors. "It works on the dogma of Western time-keeping -- the minutes 60 times slower than the seconds and the hours 12 times slower than the minutes," Shawcross said. These articulated arms hold small but very powerful lights up to 1000 watts, which light up the darkness in the massive Roundhouse to reveal a three-meter high pillar, called a gnomon, which then casts shadows. These shadows tell the time in hours minutes and seconds, Shawcross said, which can be read using the pillars of the Roundhouse as reference. "Timepiece" remains on show until August 25 at the Roundhouse.