Real Time Schiphol People’s Clock
by Maarten Baas

Maarten Baas has designed the Real Time Schiphol People’s Clock.

Baas replaces the traditional clock face with a 12-hour video in which 1,000 people collaboratively form the time.

The hour and minute hands emerge through synchronised movement, while a single runner creates the second hand along the perimeter.

Each screen shows a continuous sequence of participants physically linked in precise choreography.

“The clock functions because people literally create the time,” said Maarten Baas.

Filmed in a Schiphol hangar, most volunteers were airport employees, including security staff, baggage handlers, airline crew and cleaners.

The work is a tribute to the thousands who keep Schiphol running and highlights the airport as, above all, a human place.