Miss Clock - enacting (wo)man-machine

Higher Seminar co-arranged by Media and Communication Studies and Art History with Anna Lundh, Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design / Royal Institute of Technology (KTH).

We may not need her anymore, but she still exists. In Denmark and Sweden at least, “Miss Clock” is still possible to call (In Norway the service is discontinued). “Fröken Ur” – a merging of (wo)man and machine – is the name of the automatic telephone service installed in Sweden in 1934, a technology we have been dependent upon to be able to know precise time (until recent times). Miss Clock is an artistic investigation into this phenomenon, reviving lost voices of time, and enacting the technology through human movement and voice. It is also an exploration into related subject matters such as the history of time-telling and coordination, chronemics, technological shifts, optical sound technology, synthetic speech, as well as gender perspectives.

Anna Lundh is a visual artist and currently a PhD candidate in the program “Art, Technology and Design” at Konstfack and KTH, Stockholm. Lundh's work investigates cultural phenomena and societal agreements, often dealing with the subject matters of time and temporality and our relationship with technology. Lundh’s transdisciplinary practice includes video, installation, web-based work, interactive experiments, text as well as lecture-performance, and has been exhibited in Sweden at Moderna Museet, Bonniers Konsthall, Index Foundation, and GIBCA, to name a few; and internationally in Korea, Norway, Holland, Denmark, Latvia and the US – primarily in New York City art organizations including The New Museum, The Kitchen, ExitArt, Apexart, and Performa 13.

It will be possible to participate in the seminar both live on campus or digitally via Zoom. For more information including Zoom link, please contact Saga Hansén (details below).