Quadratime is an abstract media artwork and experimental time display.
Quadratime offers an alternative perception of time and is the first multimedia artwork especially developed for the iPhone/iPod and iPad.
Time doesn’t elapse. The impression of time “passing by” is manmade. Quadratime distances itself from a purely linear perception of time and allows the user to perceive time as an area or a picture.
Quadratime translates a static picture into an endless abstract film. Emanating from Kazimir Malevich’s legendary painting “Black Square”, the film generates perpetual movement through a sequence of individual pictures. The degree of abstraction reached by Malevich is brought into the present using technical possibilities. Furthermore, the basic square form corresponds exactly to the smallest digital unit of image representation, the pixel, while the contrast between black and white is a direct translation of the binary foundation of digital technology.
Quadratime’s basic time unit is predictable and alike for all people; the day. The black square area represents the duration of one day. All other units result as a division of the basic square into four equal square parts. The white square area denotes the present quarter of the day. In the first quarter of the day the white square is to the upper left, in the second quarter to the upper right, in the third to the lower right and in the fourth quarter of the day to the lower left. Thus a tangible image.