Error Is Keeping Time

We usually take the continuous and accurate movement of a clock for granted. Error Is Keeping Time begins with this familiar expectation, rebuilding the hidden transfer of energy, friction, loss, and accumulated deviation of a mechanical clock inside a digital timekeeping system.

The program does not display the correct current time. Each second is determined by variables including phase, virtual energy, friction, accumulated error, and “time debt.” As energy declines, the digital clock can lag, skip, catch up, or suddenly compensate; earlier deviations continue to shape later behaviour. The screen and sound are generated from the live computational state, making invisible changes audible through ticks, friction, pauses, and breaks.

An exposed mechanical clock is installed beside the screen, but it is not connected to the program and sends no data to the digital system. Its gears continue through physical energy transfer and friction, while the computational system runs a deliberately constructed model of another kind of loss. The two remain independent, allowing viewers to compare material movement with a computational model rather than treating the latter as a literal simulation of mechanical wear.

The work does not set out to prove that clocks inevitably fail. Instead, it turns our trust in accuracy back into something that can be observed. Continuous, stable time depends on conditions, energy, and compensation; once these acts of maintenance are written into the work, accuracy appears not only as an outcome but as something continually produced.