German Pocket Watches, c. 1580; via PewterReplicas.Co.Uk. Note: These watches had a single hand for hours; they weren’t precise enough to count minutes.
I love traditional watchmaking: a perfect synthesis of hard-core mechanical engineering and delicate, precision jewelers’ work. Digital media players transformation information into action: mechanical watches transform action into information. It’s a joy to watch them work.
Pocket Watch Parts, from antique-pocket-watch.com
Here are two videos exploring the insides of a pocket watch. The first is by Charlie Visnic, who used macro lens photography to create sharp, penetrating close-ups of the interior of a vintage watch given to him for some PR work he’d done for DreamWorks. Visnic added his own music, created on a punchcard roll for a music box. The result is lovely:
Day 186 / Time from Charlie Visnic on Vimeo.
Visnic’s inspiration was this 1949 film that also explored the interior of a watch, in this case using oversized models rather than magnifying film lenses. It’s terrific; less arty than educational, but still fun to see:
Nerd that I am, I can’t help but think of watchmaker-turned-nuclear-physicist Jon Osterman in the graphic novel Watchmen: after a horrible accident disintegrating his molecular structure, Osterman reassembles his body piece by piece, every delicate part in the right order, just like reassembling a watch. In the process, Osterman learns to manipulate reality itself at the atomic level and gains the power to see through time itself. In a discontinuous, meditative fugue in the middle of the book, he realizes that his own disintegration, the pieces of a pocket watch falling apart, the end of his marriage, and the end of the world are all the same event — every piece slipping out of his grasp, every gesture just one step, one fraction of a moment too late.
How A Watch Works [Kottke]
See Also:
- New Watch Takes Electronic Ink Beyond Books
- Gallery: Sexy, Strange New Timepieces Debut at Basel Watch Fair …
- Wired 7.01: My Obsession
- Why Wristwatches Are Still Worth Watching
- How to Turn the iPod Nano Into a Wristwatch
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