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The Caltech Alumni Association Analemmatic Sundial
The Caltech Alumni Association's analemmatic sundial is a public artwork. The piece is designed to encourage participation by the viewer, and combines elements of an early scientific instrument with installation, performance, and land art components.
An analemmatic sundial uses a standing person as the gnomon (casting the shadow) to tell the time. Precisely aligned by solar observations to the rotational axis of the earth, or "true north," and calibrated for latitude, this sundial keeps accurate solar time by measuring, in shadows, the apparent motion of the sun.
This gift from the Caltech Alumni Association to Caltech is a sculpture, a public artwork and a scientific instrument. Without a person to activate it, the sundial is a piece of art that takes its place alongside the architectural details of the campus.
When an observer steps onto the embedded rectangular plinth, the sundial becomes an interactive piece of art and reminds the observer (in their role as human gnomon) not only of where, but when, they stand.
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