Aspirational Clocks

This excerpt from a piece in the One Day in the City: Part I exhibition at University College London caught my eye and my imagination:

Aspirational Clock

1913 – the Post Office was sets up [sic] a cheaper version of its electrical time service, known as ‘synchronisation’. A newspaper article noted that this, “it might be thought, would risk the business of the lady who calls at the Observatory once a week for the right time and then carries it around to her clients. But apparently there is no danger of this . Miss Belville … cuts time down to finer distinction than any synchronized clock can aspire to.”

I love the idea of clocks aspiring to be more and of time being something you can carry. I think there’s some interesting leverage in infusing our technology with dreams and also of giving the intangible mass and physical form.

Miss Belville – Ruth – was one of the Greenwich Time Ladies. Also fascinating and a good reminder that tech can slip.