Inside Long Now's Plan to Redesign The Interval's Exhibits for Its Tenth Anniversary
The Long Now Foundation
In this short talk from the 2024 Long Now Ignite Talks, Long Now Senior Project Manager Andrew Warner described a project the foundation had been working on for many months and was presenting publicly for the first time. The project is a complete redesign of the display space at The Interval, Long Now's San Francisco headquarters. The problem it addresses is simple: many people who come to The Interval never realize they are inside a larger nonprofit. Warner gave a quick tour of the planned exhibits and explained what each one is meant to communicate.
Why a Long-Term Thinking Nonprofit Opened a Bar
Warner began with some background. Almost exactly ten years earlier, Long Now opened The Interval. It serves as the foundation's headquarters and also works as a bar, café, museum, library, and event space. He admitted that "hindsight's 20/20," but said the idea seemed "pretty out there" when it was first proposed: a nonprofit devoted to long-term thinking was going to open a bar.
He said the venture worked out. The press has called The Interval one of the best bars in the country, and it runs as a café during the day. For Long Now, having its own venue has made a big difference in how many events and lectures it can host.
Warner said the team always knew the space could do more. Visitors often came in without knowing it belonged to a larger organization. The tenth anniversary gave Long Now a reason to fix that, so the display space is being rebuilt to put more emphasis on Long Now's mission and projects.
Explaining Long Now: A Painting of 20,000 Years
The first task, Warner said, is explaining what Long Now is. He joked that anyone who has tried to describe the organization to a friend knows it does not fit easily into an elevator pitch.
A painting will anchor the long-term thinking section. It measures 12 feet by 4 feet and is by artist and Long Now staff member Casey K. It depicts "the long now," meaning the previous 10,000 years and the next 10,000 years. Warner showed a preview of the painting in progress.
Making the Clock's Scale Tangible
The next section covers the Clock of the Long Now. Its centerpiece will be a full-size clock face, 5 feet in diameter, built from actual spare parts for the clock in Texas. Warner said the team felt honored to host it.
He described a recurring problem when explaining the clock: people struggle to picture how large it is. You can tell someone the clock is 500 feet tall, but that number is hard to imagine. To address this, the team is building a full-size replica of one of the clock's gears, 8 feet in diameter, which will hang from the ceiling so visitors can see its real size. Next to it will be a model showing how that gear sits inside the clock, with a human figure included for scale.
Engineering for 10,000 Years: The Equation of Time Cam and the Orrery
To show what it takes to engineer something meant to last 10,000 years, the exhibit will include the equation of time cam. Warner called it a sculptural piece of the clock. It converts the sun's position into the correct time, and it has to account for factors such as the 26,000-year precession of the equinoxes.
Warner also mentioned a request Long Now has heard for years: get the beloved orrery spinning again. The team is restoring it to working order so visitors can watch the planets move.
The Bristlecone Preserve in Nevada
After the clock, the next display is about Long Now's bristlecone preserve in eastern Nevada. Warner called the mountain beautiful. It is home to the bristlecone pine, which he described as Long Now's tree mascot, and it also hosts some of the foundation's long-term art projects and science initiatives.
The anchor for this section is a cross section of a bristlecone pine about 2,200 years old. Warner said the tree will be used to help visitors experience multi-millennial time spans visually, with dates marked on it that tie its rings to events in history.
A Miniature Interval, a Rosetta Disk Under the Microscope, and a Comet
Next comes a display about The Interval itself. Warner noted that many people only see the space during the day, when it is in café mode. To show its other role, the team is building a small diorama of The Interval set up for a lecture, "full of tiny people enjoying tiny drinks."
A Rosetta disk has been on display since The Interval opened, but Warner said it was not very interactive. The new version will add a microscope so visitors can examine the pages on the disk themselves.
For Long Now's off-world language archives, the team is 3D-printing a model of comet 67P, where one of the foundation's language archives landed in 2014. Warner added that the comet model will not be to scale.
Signage, Materials, and Lighting
Warner said all of the signage will be redone using materials that match the space: glass, walnut, and 316 stainless steel. Lighting will be built into the displays so they feel "museum worthy."
A Multimedia Tour to Replace the Hour-Long Guided Walkthrough
The final element is meant to let visitors go deeper into the projects. Warner said that right now, understanding everything in the space requires a Long Now staff member or a very knowledgeable friend to lead a full hour-long tour. That is hard to arrange for the roughly 40,000 visitors he said The Interval receives each year. Long Now is therefore building a multimedia tour with members of its board and staff, along with the clock's engineers, talking about the foundation's various projects.
Timeline
Warner said installation was scheduled for late August, with the exhibition opening in early September. He invited people to visit once it is finished and said he expected it to be a special experience.
Hi, my name is Andrew Warner, and I'm here today to tell you about a project we at Long Now have been working on for many months and are telling the public about for the first time. Almost exactly 10 years ago, Long Now opened The Interval, our headquarters in Fort Mason that's also a bar, cafe, museum, library, and event space.
Hindsight's 20/20, but when we first came up with this idea it was pretty out there: a long-term thinking nonprofit opening a bar. Thankfully, it was a success. Press has called The Interval one of the best bars in the country, it's an amazing cafe during the day, but having our own venue has made a huge difference in being able to host more events and lectures.
Yet we always knew it could be so much more. People would come to The Interval and not know it was part of a larger nonprofit. For The Interval's 10th anniversary, we want to remedy this. We're completely redoing the display space to better highlight Long Now's mission and projects. I'm going to spend the rest of this talk giving a whirlwind tour of some of the parts of this project.
Our first challenge is explaining what Long Now is. If you've ever tried to tell a friend about us, you know we aren't the easiest organization to give an elevator pitch on. Anchoring our long-term thinking section will be a 12-foot by 4-foot painting by artist and Long Now staff member Casey K, showing the long now: the previous and next 10,000 years. Here's a preview of what that painting looks like so far.
After that section, we get to the Clock of the Long Now. To showcase the Clock, we are hanging a full-size, 5-foot diameter clock face made from the actual spare parts from the Clock in Texas. We're really honored to be hosting this part, and we're really excited about it.
One of the things we've noticed in explaining the Clock is people have a hard time visualizing the size of the Clock. You can say it's 500 feet tall, but it's hard to picture that. To help solve this, we're building an 8-foot diameter, full-size replica of one of the gears of the Clock that will hang from the ceiling so that visitors can understand how big it is. Pairing with that gear is a model of what this gear will look like inside the Clock, with a person for scale.
Next, to explain the challenges of engineering for 10,000 years, we're featuring the equation of time cam, the sculptural clock piece that converts the sun's position to the correct time and has to take factors into account like the 26,000-year precession of the equinoxes.
One request we've had for years is to get the beloved orrery spinning again. We're currently busy restoring the orrery to working order so that people can see the planets move.
Moving on from the Clock, the next display focuses on Long Now's Bristlecone Preserve in eastern Nevada. This beautiful mountain is home to our tree mascot, the bristlecone pine, but also hosts some of our long-term thinking art projects and long-term science initiatives. The anchor piece for this section is a 2,200-year-old bristlecone cross-section. We're using this tree as a way to visually experience multi-millennial time spans and filling it with dates that are Long Now-related or Long Now-adjacent.
Next, we have a display about The Interval itself. Many people only experience The Interval during the day when it's in cafe mode, and so we are building a tiny little Interval diorama where there will be a tiny lecture full of tiny people enjoying tiny drinks.
We've had a Rosetta Disk on display since opening, but it wasn't very interactive. For this next iteration, we're going to include a microscope so that you can look at the different pages on the disk and explore yourself.
To tell people about our off-world language archives, we're 3D printing a model of Comet 67P, where we put one of our language archives in 2014. Note: this comet will not be to scale.
Taking a step back, all of our signage is going to get a revamp with materials that match the space: glass, walnut, 316 stainless steel. We're also going to integrate lighting to make all these feel like museum-worthy displays.
Finally, we really want to provide the opportunity for people to deep dive and learn more about these projects. Right now, to fully understand what's going on in this space, a Long Now staff member or a very knowledgeable friend has to give a full hour-long tour, which is hard to arrange for the 40,000 visitors we get every year. So we're building a multimedia tour featuring Long Now board, staff members, and Clock engineers talking about all our different projects.
We've been hard at work at this. We're going to be installing in late August for an early September opening. Please come visit when it's done. It should be a really special experience, and we're really excited to share it with you. Thank you.
Article published