Design for a cosmological clock

This is a project that I have been working on and off over the past two years. Only last week it reached a design that pleased me enough to show it to my better half. She kind of liked its esthetics but after a short pause she frowned and asked me: “How does it work? What does it do?” .

I had (and still have) no clue. It made me feel like a mad scientist who produced an useless invention. Obviously it indicates the time of the day and just like a coocoo clock it opens the doors to give a light show on the hour with the little devices at the bottom of the inside of the door turning around, but apart from that: no clue.

Its concept has been inspired by the “Wunschtraum Clock”, a device that features prominently in a novel called the “Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern (very entertaining book: I recommend it). The Wunschtraum Clock is ever present in the circus and it shows that all things are tied to time. As its hands slowly tick down the cycle of the night, the clock’s elaborate chiming mechanisms thematize the mundane.

Adam Sanford, at that time an art student in his final semester, chose to take this literary device to a higher, more tangible, stage. The result was the following:

This inspired me to do something similar that would reflect the cosmical cycle theme that runs through most of my literary and artistic activities.

But up to this stage, the cosmological clock only indicates the hour and gives once an hour a two minutes light and sound show. If anyone among you have some more ideas that can be incorporated in this concept (without changing it drastically), please let me know.