2006
Time Piece Beacon, 2005

Location: Dia:Beacon, Beacon, New York,Dimensions: 200 x 800 meters
Extant: 2005–Present
Inaugurated: 2006
Time Piece Beacon is planned to be officially inaugurated in May 2006, and will be part of Dia Art Foundation’s collection.

Commissioned specifically for Dia:Beacon, Max Neuhaus’s Time Piece Beacon (2005) creates a zone of sound around the perimeter and in the galleries of the museum. As each hour approaches, a low tone gradually emerges, almost imperceptibly increasing in volume; the hour is signaled when the sound abruptly ends, creating what seems a silence in the ambient sonic environment. This is what the artist called a “sound signal in reverse,” a subtle sound that is noticed when it disappears rather than when it begins. This work belongs to a series inspired by a singular early project—a silent alarm clock, designed by Neuhaus in 1979. The device produced a drone that, growing from inaudible to a distinctly haunting volume, would induce the sleeping listener to wake up as the sound shut off. Similarly, in Time Piece Beacon, Neuhaus devised a continuous, gradual sound tapestry pitched at the upper limit of the natural ambient sounds of the area: “Initially inaudible, the sound will gradually emerge from the ambient noise 

and then will suddenly stop.” The signal thus becomes the silence that ensues after the cessation of the sound. As another reference that informed the series, Neuhaus recalled the unifying role of bells in early modern societies, gathering the listeners audibly, but also delimiting the spatial perimeter of a community by means of vibrating, tactile sound resonance