Narrative: Swatch watch

This watch was given to me as abirthday gift in 2007. The Swatch Group is the world's largest watch company established in 1983. Manufactured in Switzerland and China. China is a big marketplace for Swatch watches. The products that Swatch produces in Asia are destined for the local market. It has no correlation with their Swiss Made brands. The Asian watch production consists of component parts for very inexpensive quartz movements assembled in Zhuhai, in the Southeast of China.

Wristwatches that mixed microchip technology with quartz crystals are the standard.The microchip is utilized to send signals to the dial of the watch on a continual basis. The use of quartz in watches makes use of a long-known type of electricity known as piezoelectricity. Piezoelectricity is the current which flows from or through a piece of quartz when the quartz is put under electrical and/or mechanical pressure (piezo is from the Greek verb meaning "to press"). The heart of a quartz watch is a tiny sliver of quartz. In a natural form, quartz is first loaded into a giant kettle or autoclave. Hanging from the top of the autoclave are seeds or tiny particles of quartz with the desired crystalline structure. An alkaline material is pumped into the bottom of the autoclave, and the autoclave is heated to a high temperature, dissolving the quartz in the hot alkaline liquid, evaporating it, and depositing it on the seeds. After about 75 days, the chamber can be opened, and the newly grown quartz crystals can be removed and cut into the correct proportions.

Mary,

I just discovered your project and I am obsessed with the idea. I love that you cataloged every object and gave a background of the process of creation of the object. I would like to request object 195-the swatch. I live in San Francisco. You asked what the receiver would do with the object. I would like to fix the band and reuse the watch.
Or I could just mount it on my wall. Either way it would give it a second life.

Let me know what you think. If not the watch would it be possible to acquire one of the objects from this project? I could make a trade with you although I am not sure you'd want more things....

All the best,
Angi Brzycki
san francisco, ca

Dear Angi,
Thank you for this request. I've been traveling for the past 3 weeks and have another 2 to go before I'm back home and would be honored to send that to you - I love your idea for it!
I'll be in touch soon with details.
All my best,
Mary

Mary,
I got the watch! Thanks so much. Here are photos of it's new home- on the wall of my apartment above my desk. I bought the plastic case for 50 cents at this place called scrap (www.scrap-sf.org/about).
All the best!
Angi