Christian Marclay’s The Clock is not only a feat in film editing, I feel it’s also in a way a snapshot of the sheer volume of film, and to a degree, human culture. A looping 24 hour film, The Clock is a series of film clips with clocks in them edited together that so that the time presented on the clocks in the film coincides with the real life time of day the film is being shown. Due to this, the viewer is in essence watching the time pass by as the film progresses, with the film itself functioning as a clock.
I find is particularly interesting both as a feat of editing but also as a form of abstraction of time. There’s a curious tension between being wholly aware of the time as a physical construct (ie the clock) while altogether being separated from the cultural notions of time (ie death, business etc) that arise through existing as a human being. I also marvel at the fact that humanity has produced enough film to present all 24 hours on clocks.