This project which started in 2024, is a series of extraterrestrial digital timekeepers, programmed using scientific measurements based on the real-time orbits of nearby planets and other celestial bodies. The work invites reflection on cultural and political hegemony, as well as anthropocentrism, by highlighting how even speculative systems of time remains grounded in standardized constructs. Each dating system is anchored to a telescopic epoch—marking their first recorded observation by telescope—thus embedding the project within a Western scientific canon and aligning it with their official nomenclature.
By questioning the purpose of timekeeping systems—tools historically used to regulate labour, coordinate societies, and impose temporal order—the work gestures toward the hypothetical frameworks that might govern the future. It raises questions about whose chronologies will define off-world life, and whether time itself might once again become a site of ideological negotiation.
The work subtly critiques the colonial legacy embedded in timekeeping and astronomy, challenging assumptions about universality and neutrality in scientific systems. By translating planetary motion into human-readable formats, the Cosmic UTC offers a quiet reorientation of time—inviting viewers to consider what it means to measure existence beyond an Earthbound perspective.
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