Parallel Times, 2024–2025

Parallel Times began with a difference Oriente noticed while in Kuala Lumpur. At half past six in the evening it is already dark in Manila, while in Kuala Lumpur the sun has not yet set, though both cities show the same time on the clock.

Peninsular Malaysia has changed time zones six times since 1901, including a period on Tokyo time during the Japanese occupation. The last change, in 1981, moved its clocks forward thirty minutes to match Singapore, Hong Kong and Manila, even though Kuala Lumpur lies more than an hour of solar time west of Manila.

Oriente worked through sunrise and sunset tables, daylight graphs and the legislative record, and set this research against solar time, which follows the position of the sun. The L-shaped installation fits into a corner of the gallery. Two tall acrylic glass panels stand at an angle to each other, each printed with a sunset from one of the two cities. Behind each panel, programmable LEDs change in brightness and colour according to solar data for that city’s coordinates, so the two sides shift at different times.