SUNDIALS: The Story of Time (SOL)

Arts, Science and Techology Centre, Vancouver, 1984-85

"A Star called SOL"
  ~  Burke Moriarty
                   

A collaboration with AST resident artist Burke Moriarty for the Arts, Science and Technology Centre—a multi-media display on Sundials—the history of their development, the astronomical theory of their operation, and the practice of their design and construction.

The exhibit explored man's understanding of time as a function of the earth's relationship to our solar system. The history of the sundial is traced from the first simple shadow stick to the complex armilllary spheres that modelled the movements of the earth, the moon, and visible planet and star paths. Our modern understanding of time as measured by the mechanical/atomic clock is based upon these earlier discoveries.

The theory of sundial's operation is based upon the movement of the Sun and the Earth, and the effect on the Sundial.  It is the diurnal and annual motion of the earth about the sun that dialling is founded.

The practice of the design and construction of sundials was illustrated in the exhibit through the construciton of actual working sundials. The design concept for the display utilized the entire gallery space as a giant sundial, reminiscent of Stonehenge one of man's earliest astronomical instruments.

Exhibit Design and installation by Artist Burke Moriarty in collaboration with Rob Sieniuc, Broadway Architects