Clock was the 2007 graduation project of designer Thorunn Arnadottir at the Iceland Academy of the Arts in Reykjavik.

The timepiece is comprised of a sequence of brightly colored beads strung round like a necklace, with each color representing an increment of minutes or hours. The string of beads is positioned on a wall-mounted wheel, which turns with an almost imperceptible slowness, releasing one bead every five minutes. Midday and midnight are marked by one gold and one silver bead, respectively. From there, one must count the red and orange hour beads and the blue five-minute beads to calculate the time of day.

Arnadottir says she was seeking a more 'emotional' perception of time, measured in relation to events in one's life rather than rigid units by which most of us slice up our day. Which is where the beauty of this project is revealed: for although the beads themselves do represent units of time when positioned on the wheel, they can also be removed from the wheel altogether, representing freedom from time. Then, Arnadottir suggests, you shoud wear the necklace proudly around your neck as a statement that you are "in control of your minutes."

Thorunn Arnadottir projects >