Daniel McKewen: Kairos

Kairos is an interactive oculo-chrono-metric artwork that combines computer vision and real-time animation to respond to viewers in the gallery. Rather than simply telling time, the artwork records the time spent being viewed. When the computer vision detects a viewer’s face, emoji “complications” appear and interact with the simulated hands of the analogue clock, altering the time displayed. As viewing continues, the emojis accumulate and eventually disrupt the clock’s mechanism entirely, creating a record of the interaction. Once the viewer moves away, the clock returns to the correct time and resets for the next viewer. Kairos is presented in Gallery 3.