Circles

More often than not, my view of the world becomes a systematization of people represented in geometric forms. It is not unlike that of da Vinci, who circumscribed the human body in a circle—fingertips, heels, and toes touch the edge so that the body’s geometry is thereby visible, looking much like a unit of movement.

It is just like the elderly man who cycles past my window at the same time each day. I perceive him as an unending circle, not simply because he is connected via the spokes of the cycle and thereby the cog wheel to the entire circular movement that is needed to keep a bicycle in motion, but also because I connect him with the circle as he cycles around the island on which I live, following the same route each day, meeting people at specific times and specific locations. One could say that, for the island, he is what the hour hand is for the clock. He represents a unit of timeliness that differs from how I normally read time, and this is the way I chance to find myself at the window when he cycles past.

There are so many other things around which I could organize my sense of time e.g., my alarm clock on my phone or the appointments that are automatically mapped into my iPhone calendar, set as actual items in an agenda from which I navigate in order to attend to my work. These items are similar to one of those drawings where a line is plotted from point to point until it ultimately forms an image; one could say that these appointments in my calendar form an image of my working life.

His cycling past my window provides the same intuitive awareness of awakening as when the sun’s first rays gently filter through the window, making me aware that the day is just getting underway. Neither the sun nor the man is aware that my timeliness is dependent on them; they are only concerned with their own inertia, which they exercise in the form of a rotation around themselves.

If I were to draw him, it would be as a circle—or a column of displaced circles that are connected, but not to be confused with a spiral. The circles would be located just above each other and would be similar; no expansion, no outward acceleration. The layers would differ in color just as the sun differs in color as time goes by. I would like to use this drawing to illuminate the concept of timeliness on which I base my work.

Ann Linn Palm Hansen is an artist, designer, and writer who lives and works on the Danish island of Tåsinge.

Photon by Ann Linn Palm Hansen is available through Maharam Digital Projects, an assemblage of large-scale wall installations created by artists, designers, illustrators, and photographers.