Dung-Beetle Calendarium
| height | (without legs) 81 cm at the beginning of the month, 93 cm at the end of the month |
| material | branches of lilac, oak, spruce, nails and screws |
| indications | month, day of the month, day of the week, zodiac, season |
Driven by the human force, which daily turns the winder, the dung beetle (scarab) puhes the segment with the 31 days of the month up by one day.
On certain days the movement is automatically passed on to other indications, so that also months, zodiac and the seasons will change at the right time.
As with other objects, the mechanisms accomplish sophisticated tasks, which, however, are not meant to be rational and useful.As long as the object is being
looked at merely as a machine, most of the technical solutions appear more complicated as they need to be. There are mechanical atavisms (such as the
hind leg of the dung beetle, which shoots backwards with every change of the
date) which have lost any kind of purpose (and not even the author himself could explain what purpose they might have had). The explanation and
justification lies in the fact that not a machine is involved but a statue..