What sparked this collaboration?

COEN KLOSTERS

A couple of years ago we were paired by Arttenders to produce an ever-evolving artwork for the Kalverpassage in Amsterdam. Working together felt like a natural fit. I discovered how amazing Sigrid is at working with colours and patterns, and how much I loved writing code to accommodate that. We kept in touch and after a while Sigrid asked me, why not join creative forces again to produce something unique and timeless?

Why produce a clock? - one of the oldest pieces of tech known to mankind. 

COEN KLOSTERS

I always wanted to make something small, intimate, for your house, using the tech we normally use/apply for large
scale productions. Like an interactive painting you get to enjoy every day.

Time for me is something special, it's the fourth dimension! More 'traditional' art is two or three dimensional, coded art
adds the fourth and I love playing with that extra dimension. As you interact with the artwork in your personal space, it should grow on you, slowly, as the days pass and time fades.

TIME=COLOUR takes away the literal and adds the emotional aspect. It also poses a question: why must time, and our relationship with it, be so absolute? Is that what we want? Often it's enough to know something passed, not exactly when.

SIGRID CALON

Time is a beautiful and special concept and something we tend to take for granted. We often don't have enough time,
time goes too fast, be on time for your appointment, etc. I
actually prefer not to call this piece a clock. It's much more than that! I see it more as an object based on time. In the process of making it, we played with the different perceptions and representations of time. For example, one setting, which is called TIME=COLOUR, omits the numbers completely, however the passage of time is still manifested in the background colors. This creates compositions in moving areas of color. For me this is so great that we can display the time in color, has this ever been done before? I think it is no longer about whether you can literally read time, the fact that you have so many options and you can choose abstraction is the end all be all!

What makes TIME=COLOUR unique?

SIGRID CALON

Coen and I decided that it would be a limited edition of 50. We thought it would be a challenge to make them all
unique! Sometimes I cursed that choice, but now I'm very happy with it. For me it was a search for beautiful and timeless color schemes. There are a number of different basic setups. For example, you can choose only two colors in the background, but more variation in the numbers. Some pieces have the powerful color combination in the background of yellow, red, blue and white, which is of course a bit of a tribute to De Stijl and Mondrian. 

The shapes I used come from a work I made in 2020, which was based on research into a new visual language using
eight shapes. The basis of those eight shapes has its origins in the circle and the square: the whole form, half, quarter and eighth. The shapes have abstraction and playfulness, which allows one to create different styles with them, such as the use of colour in the different parts, an outline or a filling gradient in the numbers. I think what is special is that we offer options of perception. As an 'owner' you look
for your own preferences and the piece allows you to play with them.