Manifesta purposely strives to keep its distance from what are often seen as the dominant centres of artistic production, instead seeking fresh and fertile terrain for the mapping of a new cultural topography.
Jon Kessler, US
Jon Kessler, The World Is Cuckoo, 2016 © Manifesta 11 / Wolfgang Traeger.
This complex kinetic sculpture resulted from a collaboration between American artist Jon Kessler and Officine Panerai’s master watchmaker Adriano Toninelli. It was driven by the tiny tourbillon mechanism inside a watch that was specially designed by Toninelli. The miniature movement of the tourbillon was transferred through cylindrical zoetropes up to a neon sign that read “the world is a cuckoo clock”.