Sunclock

Have you ever seen a clock that bites back? Right here, at Corpus Christi College, stands the Sunclock, a marvel of engineering and a whimsical, yet unsettling, work of art. More formally known as the Corpus Clock, it’s not your average timepiece. This extraordinary clock was unveiled in 2008 by none other than Stephen Hawking, a fitting presenter for such a thought-provoking creation. The Sunclock’s face, a rippling disc of gold-plated stainless steel, catches the light in mesmerizing ways. Look closely, though. There are no hands, no familiar numerals. Instead, slits of light illuminate from behind the face, tracing the passage of time in a mesmerizing dance. But it’s the creature perched atop the Sunclock that truly captures the imagination, and perhaps sends a shiver down your spine. The Chronophage, a nightmarish insect-like sculpture, dominates the scene. This “time-eater,” as its name suggests, appears to devour each second as it passes, its jaws snapping shut with a chilling finality. It blinks, too, occasionally, as if savoring its relentless consumption of time. The Sunclock isn’t just a spectacle; it’s a sophisticated feat of engineering. John C. Taylor, a Corpus Christi alumnus, envisioned and funded this masterpiece as a homage to John Harrison, the inventor of the grasshopper escapement. This ingenious mechanism, visible within the Sunclock’s exposed workings, translates the pendulum’s swing into the rotation of the time-telling disc. The Sunclock, with its erratic movements and startling hourly ritual, embodies the unpredictable nature of time. It’s a clock that sometimes seems to pause, to reflect, to hurry along, much like our own perception of time’s passage. And on the hour? Forget gentle chimes. The Sunclock announces the hour with a dramatic clang of chains and the thud of a hammer against wood, a sound meant to evoke the passage of time and the inevitability of mortality. A Latin inscription beneath the clock reads “mundus transit et concupiscentia eius,” or “the world passeth away, and the lust thereof.” The Sunclock, with its terrifying beauty, serves as a constant, and perhaps unsettling, reminder of time’s precious and fleeting nature.