Einstein-Inspired Clock Uses Sand to Show the Passing of Time

As digital timepieces continue to dominate, designers are choosing to repurpose the analog clock as decoration or conceptual art piece. Take the Awaglass, the hourglass filled with bubbles that makes time look like it's going backwards, or the Shadow Clock, a modern sundial that can be used inside. Sand, another conceptual clock, makes telling the actual time a little difficult—but more than compensates with its creative presentation. 

Designed by Studio Ayaskan (also responsible for the Origami Pot), the timepiece mimics a sand garden. As time passes in the morning, the clock's hand slowly combs the sand in a circular pattern. In the afternoon, the hand wipes the pattern away. The time can be told depending on the patterns of the lines in the sand, like so:

The designers behind the clock were inspired by the Albert Einstein quote, “Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter.”

The clock is part of a series called "Ripples of Time," which also includes Sand's complementary timepiece, appropriately dubbed "Water." As Studio Ayaskan explains on their website:

Sand, inspired by Zen Gardens, is the gradual formation and flattening of a ripple pattern over a period of twelve hour cycles. Water, on the other hand, tells the ephemeral time through concentric circles in the form of endless waves that ripple by the second. It is the landscapes and the cycles found in nature, that both the projects represent.

All images courtesy of Studio Ayaskan