David Rooney: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks

As with all Long Now Talks, David Rooney’s talk on Thursday, September 9, 02021 began with a few tones from Brian Eno’s January 07003: Bell Studies for The Clock of the Long Now, based on the original algorithm for the Clock’s ever-changing chimes designed by Danny Hillis. These rings of the Clock’s bell were an especially good fit for Rooney’s talk, though: Over the course of an hour, his “History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks” engaged directly with the inexorably ticking logic of clocks just as Eno and Hillis’ work did so musically. Drawing on the wealth of stories on clocks contained within his recently published book, About Time, Rooney cleanly sketched a global history of imperial control, popular resistance, and the spread of information, illustrated vividly using clocks both ancient and modern. Rooney — a horologist and historian of technology by trade as the curator at the Science Museum, London — focused his story on three clocks within the United Kingdom and the British Raj in India between 01890 and 01920 CE. Yet his wide-ranging talk flowed naturally out of those more constrained examples, wading back through time to the reign of Timurid astronomer-king Ulūgh Beg in 01424 CE and the rule of Roman dictator and sundial-builder Manius Valerius Maximus in 00494 BCE and forward to the contemporary moment, where we are at once surrounded by clocks large and small and less aware of their presence in the form of technology like GPS satellites, which rely on atomic clocks to accurately track their positions. While his talk at times focused on the violent reactions against the imposition of clocks on oppressed populations in British India and the Roman Empire, Rooney’s overall message was one of hope: “while clocks might oppress us, clocks can and will save us as well.” The horologist, who first engaged with Long Now as the lead caretaker of Long Now's Prototype 1 10,000-year-clock, pointed to The Clock as a key example of how clocks serve as “proxies for humans,” their ticking mechanisms giving them a certain heartbeat-like quality that speaks to their deeply embodied humanity.