At the most recent Venice Biennale, Japanese artist Tatsuo Miyajima scattered 100 digital watches, each set to a different time, over the floor of a dark room. The numbers darted about crazily, from one point to another, simulating a strange nocturnal landscape (the runway of an airport? a bird’s-eye view of a city by night?), and at the same time tormenting the perceptual security of the observer. The piece produced an enormous clash between perceptual deformation and a simplicity, even poverty of means. Finally, the work’s title, Il mare del tempo (The sea of time), seemed to contain a concise