EPHEMERIS Notes

Ephemeris · The Notes

An exhibition that shows one thing at a time.

EPHEMERIS holds a single object for a single year. There is no second gallery, no supporting display, no wall of context. The room is dark and the object is lit by one moving source, because most of what is worth seeing on an old instrument is only visible when the light is nearly parallel to its surface. Exhibit 01 opened in January and runs until the solstice.

IThe Object

Instrument
Armillary sphere
Maker
Franciszek Słupski
Made
Kraków, 1771
Materials
Brass, iron, turned and painted wood, glass
Height
510 mm
Collection
Jagiellonian University Museum, Collegium Maius
Inventory
4307; 307/V
Digitisation
Regional Digitalisation Lab, Małopolska Institute of Culture

Słupski built the sphere as part of the doctoral thesis he defended at the Philosophy Department of the University of Kraków. It is a teaching instrument: a nest of rings standing for the great circles of the sky, a small sun hung at the centre, and a graduated horizon band that the whole assembly turns inside. It was used to demonstrate celestial phenomena and to read off time and coordinates — work now done by a device in your pocket, which is why the object is here and not in service.

IIThe Five Acts

  1. I

    The Object

    The whole instrument, held at distance, emerging from an unlit room.

  2. II

    The Horizon Ring

    A slow approach to the graduated band, until the engraving is larger than the sphere.

  3. III

    Raking Light

    The lamp passes to the visitor. At four degrees of incidence, tool marks return.

  4. IV

    The Mechanism

    The pull-back. The sphere turns on its polar axis while the light crosses above it.

  5. V

    Resting

    The composition the object was photographed in, and will be left in.

IIIVisit

The room holds twelve people. When it is full the stair is held, which is usually a wait of a few minutes. There is a bench.

Exhibit 02 has been chosen
and will not be announced.