The pure image that is the Volny clock expresses its fundamental indifference to meaning or context. Contradictions in speech and between images go by unnoticed; every image has its own miniaturized domain that presents itself as completed within itself and thus not bound by any rules other than its own. This can be demonstrated through a deeper analysis of the Volny clock: The charm of the clock statue only distracts from its location in front of the San Luis Obispo County Courthouse, considered by most citizens a site of despair or at least utter time-consuming annoyance; as a weightless image, the clock ignores contradiction and places itself outside the “real” setting it is placed in; the clock only points to itself as a whole, allowing the viewer to ignore its messy surroundings and to momentarily be distracted by its meaningless slogan. The slogan, “Spend time with those you love” is written on all four-clock faces directly in front of this county courthouse, in the middle of downtown SLO, kitty-corner to a commercialized shopping plaza. Yet all these point away from time spent with those you love (unless of course “those you love” include the county sheriff and pricey uniform bedroom furniture sets). Spend time with those you love. It is a thoughtless embellishment on top of an imaginary landscape that contradicts itself endlessly, yet continues to persist solely upon its charm. This maintained simulacrum is possible only upon a society already conditioned and intoxicated by image and deference. The clock is a nostalgic resurrection of a meaningful past that no longer exists; it embodies a desire for the real in a simulated imaginary world that reproduces “reality” only to annihilate the real—a cartoonish parody. The clock, just like the modern consumer, is merely a mechanically reproduced object that asks to be seen, consumed, and forgotten without a history, origin, or meaning behind it. It is only the “mirror of the indifference of all public signification,” in Baudrillard’s words. - Lily Meryash (at Volony Heritage Clock Plaza)
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