Hornsby Water Clock
Encyclopedia
Kinetic art
Kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.-Kinetic sculpture:...
, a decorative fountain
Fountain
A fountain is a piece of architecture which pours water into a basin or jets it into the air either to supply drinking water or for decorative or dramatic effect....
and a functional clock
Clock
A clock is an instrument used to indicate, keep, and co-ordinate time. The word clock is derived ultimately from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning "bell". A silent instrument missing such a mechanism has traditionally been known as a timepiece...
in the Florence Street pedestrian mall
Pedestrian mall
Pedestrian malls in the United States are also known as pedestrian streets and are the most common form of pedestrian zone in large cities in the United States. It is a street lined with storefronts and closed off to most automobile traffic...
in Hornsby
Hornsby, New South Wales
* Highest Maximum Temperature: 42 °C* Lowest Maximum Temperature: 4.9 °C* Warmest Month: January* Coolest Month: July* Highest Precipitation: February* Lowest Precipitation: July-Notable residents:...
, New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Unveiled in 1993, the sculpture was designed and engineered by Victor Cusack and constructed of bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
, stainless steel
Stainless steel
In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....
and glass
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...
by Victor and his foundry floor manager Rex Feakes. Construction, including alterations to the mall, cost over A$
Australian dollar
The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...
1 million and took two and half years; thereafter, chicken bones and other carelessly discarded items caused many breakdowns before the water filtration system was upgraded.
Overview
It is a combination of three water-powered clocksWater clock
A water clock or clepsydra is any timepiece in which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into or out from a vessel where the amount is then measured.Water clocks, along with sundials, are likely to be the oldest time-measuring instruments, with the only exceptions...
– a 4th century BC Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
clepsydra, an 11th century Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
water wheel clock and a 17th century Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
pendulum
Pendulum
A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position...
clock – plus a 17-note bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
carillon
Carillon
A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...
to ring the hour based on a 250-year-old design found in an old English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
church. The whole assembly is mounted on a floating pontoon
Pontoon (boat)
A pontoon is a flotation device with buoyancy sufficient to float itself as well as a heavy load. A pontoon boat is a flattish boat that relies on pontoons to float. Pontoons may be used on boats, rafts, barges, docks, floatplanes or seaplanes. Pontoons may support a platform, creating a raft. A...
that rotates every 12 hours giving a fourth time indicator as a pointer sweeps past Roman numerals
Roman numerals
The numeral system of ancient Rome, or Roman numerals, uses combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet to signify values. The numbers 1 to 10 can be expressed in Roman numerals as:...
placed in the water around the fountain's perimeter.
The sculpture is approximately 8 metres (26.2 ft) tall and weighs 20 tonnes (22 ST).
Philosophy
The clock is adorned with four plaques, three of which explain the operation of the three individual clocks in the overall structure, and one explaining the clock's purpose overall.This first plaque
Commemorative plaque
A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other vertical surface, and bearing text in memory of an important figure or event...
says, "This mobile water sculpture is a unique environmental statement, particular relevant to Hornsby, an area retaining extensive unspoilt natural areas with abundant land and marine based flora and fauna. Its symbolism is contrasting man's historically joyful creativity with his rapidly increasing inability to co-exist with virtually all forms of life on earth."
It goes on to suggest there is a "polarity" between the "joyful complexity of creation" shown in the mechanisms mankind has invented such as those on display and the destruction we are causing by the rapidly rising global population. It pays "tribute" to the beauty of the environment in the area and our need to be responsible to our "fellow animals (human and otherwise)".
Animals represented in the sculpture are the:
- Tawny FrogmouthTawny FrogmouthThe Tawny Frogmouth is an Australian species of frogmouth, a type of bird found throughout the Australian mainland, Tasmania and southern New Guinea. The Tawny Frogmouth is often mistaken to be an owl...
- Rainbow LorikeetRainbow LorikeetThe Rainbow Lorikeet, is a species of Australasian parrot found in Australia, eastern Indonesia , Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. In Australia, it is common along the eastern seaboard, from Queensland to South Australia and northwest Tasmania...
- Pied CormorantPied CormorantThe Australia Pied Cormorant , Phalacrocorax varius, also known as the Pied Cormorant or Pied Shag, is a medium-sized member of the cormorant family. It is found around the coasts of Australasia. In New Zealand it is usually known either as the Pied Shag or by its Māori name of Karuhiruhi...
- Fairy Penguin
- PelicanPelicanA pelican, derived from the Greek word πελεκυς pelekys is a large water bird with a large throat pouch, belonging to the bird family Pelecanidae....
- Water Dragon
- Blue-tongued Lizard
- GoannaGoannaGoanna is the name used to refer to any number of Australian monitor lizards of the genus Varanus, as well as to certain species from Southeast Asia.There are around 30 species of goanna, 25 of which are found in Australia...
- Grey-headed Flying FoxGrey-headed Flying FoxThe Grey-headed Flying-Fox, Pteropus poliocephalus, is a megabat native to Australia.Members of the genus Pteropus include the largest bats in the world. The Pteropus genus has currently about 57 recognised species....
- Brushtail PossumCommon Brushtail PossumThe Common Brushtail Possum is a nocturnal, semi-arboreal marsupial of the family Phalangeridae, it is native to Australia, and the largest of the possums.Like most possums, the Common Brushtail is nocturnal...
- Sea EagleWhite-bellied Sea EagleThe White-bellied Sea Eagle , also known as the White-breasted Sea Eagle, is a large diurnal bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. Originally described by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1788, it is closely related to Sanford's Sea Eagle of the Solomon Islands, and the two are considered a superspecies...
- HumanHumanHumans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
Greek clepsydra clock
In this type of clock, water is run into a stationary vessel from a tank which is kept meniscus-full meaning that water rises over the top edge of the tank forming a convex meniscusMeniscus
The meniscus is the curve in the upper surface of a liquid close to the surface of the container or another object, caused by surface tension. It can be either convex or concave. A convex meniscus occurs when the molecules have a stronger attraction to each other than to the material of the...
and excess water is drained away. Since the depth of the water in the supply tank is constant, water is released at a constant rate; the depth of water in the receiving vessel is a measure of time.
In this example, two tubes on bearings are arranged so that they overbalance when full, thereby dumping their contents into the pond and returning to vertical under the influence of a counterweight at which point the cycle starts over. The counterweight is in the shape of a ram's head, while the top of each tube is decorated with the head of a Hermaphrodite
Hermaphrodite
In biology, a hermaphrodite is an organism that has reproductive organs normally associated with both male and female sexes.Many taxonomic groups of animals do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which both...
.
Chinese water wheel clock
This clock uses 20 counterweighted buckets that are free to swing and are mounted around the edge of a wheel 2.3 metres (7.5 ft) in diameter. Water supplied from a meniscus-full tank runs into a bucket at a constant rate until the weight of water in the bucket is sufficient to overcome the counterweight (see the Chinese Buddha sculpture) allowing the bucket to tip over spilling its contents. As it falls, it trips a lever connected by a cable to a catch on top of the water wheel which is released to allow the wheel to rotate. However by the time it has moved on, the catch has returned to its position locking the wheel in place so that the next empty bucket is now under the water flow to repeat the cycle.The design is based on one by Su Song
Su Song
Su Song was a renowned Chinese polymath who specialized himself as a statesman, astronomer, cartographer, horologist, pharmacologist, mineralogist, zoologist, botanist, mechanical and architectural engineer, poet, antiquarian, and ambassador of the Song Dynasty .Su Song was the engineer of a...
who built a clock as part of an observatory tower in the period 1088-1092.
Swiss pendulum clock
It is claimed that this is "undoubtedly the largest water-driven pendulum clock ever built" and has the same 4 second pendulum cycle time as the Great Clock of Westminster (often erroneously known as "Big Ben"), though the pendulum weight is heavier at 350 kg (771.6 lb). The design is based on one drawn up by Claude Perrault in 1669 but never built.The 5 m (16.4 ft) pendulum mounted on a knife-edge to minimize friction and is kept moving by the "top drive" (the top moving glass chutes); as one side becomes full, it tilts the mechanism over to its side so that the water is discharged and the other tank receives the water supply underneath the sea eagle sculpture.
Seconds are marked by the rotation of the glass wheel which has 30 pins around the edge. Each half-cycle of the pendulum (2 seconds) results in the wheel moving to the next pin so it completes a cycle every minute. A cam
Cam
A cam is a rotating or sliding piece in a mechanical linkage used especially in transforming rotary motion into linear motion or vice-versa. It is often a part of a rotating wheel or shaft that strikes a lever at one or more points on its circular path...
on the "second wheel" releases the holdback arm on the lower drive every 30 seconds, discharging 100 litres (26.4 US gal) of water and moves the minute hand once a minute and the hour hand once every 12 minutes.
Instead of numbers, the hours on the clock face are marked by the letters that make up "Dare we forget". The clock is decorated with various animals to "remind us that we are losing species on our earth due to our sometimes insensitive land use" and aboriginal art forms "as a reminder that Hornsby once maintained a strong tribal population that suffered the same fate as many animals are suffering".
The pendulum clock is used to control the rotation of the pontoon, the chimes and to supply water to the Chinese clock.
Pontoon rotation clock
Carillon or chime set
The carillon has 17 tubes of cast bellChurch bell
A church bell is a bell which is rung in a church either to signify the hour or the time for worshippers to go to church, perhaps to attend a wedding, funeral, or other service...
-bronze that chime automatically on the hour, or they can be played manually. The mechanism is of a design invented by "Harringtons of Coventry
Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...
" and seen by the sculptor at a church in Haywards Heath
Haywards Heath
-Climate:Haywards Heath experiences an oceanic climate similar to almost all of the United Kingdom.-Rail:Haywards Heath railway station is a major station on the Brighton Main Line...
in Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
though the frame has been constructed of metal rather than wood and this set has 17 tubes instead of the 6 to 9 seen elsewhere. Together the tubes weigh approximately 1 tonnes (1.1 ST) and span from the octave
Octave
In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...
above Middle C
Middle C
C or Do is the first note of the fixed-Do solfège scale. Its enharmonic is B.-Middle C:Middle C is designated C4 in scientific pitch notation because of the note's position as the fourth C key on a standard 88-key piano keyboard...
plus 3 notes above and the G note below.
Plaques
External links
- The Water Clock Chronicles on YouTube. Sculptor, Victor Cusack explains the history,workings and meanings of his Water Clock.
- The Hornsby Water Clock Story on YouTube. This undated segment of a current affairs program was apparently made while initial problems were still being worked through. It appears to be from The 7:30 Report with Quentin DempsterQuentin DempsterQuentin Dempster is an Australian journalist and author.He has worked in the industry for 30 years and has been employed by the ABC for 20.His most important contribution was his exposé of police corruption in Queensland....
presenting (he appears momentarily at 4:37) which would place it before 1995 when Kerry O'Brien took over. - The Carillon in Hornsby Mall on YouTube. Victor Cusack playing the instrument.
- The artworks of Victor Cusack - artist, sculptor, author, poet (Victor's web site with pictures of the sculpture http://www.victorcusack.com.au/pages/art_single.php?work_id=90 and http://www.victorcusack.com.au/pages/art_single.php?work_id=92.)