by Joshua Munchow

Lamplight plays across the face, dancing off the tiniest of facets, gleaming from polished hand tips and glowing from the deep hue splashed at the extremes on the gentle dome of streaked metal. Color literally fumes from the edges, your senses drinking it in and your mind slowing to a trickling pattern of question and feeling.

The tug-of-war between reflection and darkness, order to simplicity, makes your pulse quicken; eyes dilating to comprehend it all. All of it and none of it reach your synapses, causing a rapid fire of lightning around your being, from ankles to earlobes, nostrils to navel. You ponder the depth to which you are drawn, all the while knowing it is mere millimeters that disguise the mental miles.

The whole reflects you: your face to its face, and your hands in its hands, the irony of its place, a body bound to your body, never detracting from patient splendor. Its form is wholly different from that which shapes you, yet it holds no form without relation to appendage. Form begets form, observing codifies its beauty.

Its visage bears no mark, no indication of its origin, though evidence is ne’er required when anatomy is this intimate. The hands grasp your gaze with fingers pointing into darkness, smooth as crystal on your pupils they sing all moments in silence.

Hourly they meet and embrace before parting, vowing to return when their peaceful wandering brings each other near.

That peace is impermanent, and in time this truth is revealed. A window into its soul uncovers a delicate ballet that breathes life into a metal heart, a beating manifestation of nature’s innate rhythm innate. The balance and poise of this mechanical maelstrom belie complexity with an effortless flutter, mimicking a whirlpool of fluid power captured in the eye of ultramarine seas.

Arms become a cage, driven by opposing spirals of equal potential and force, guarded by a stone as precious as is necessary. Preciousness does not come easy, it must be worked and twisted and nudged into compliance, itself a prisoner of its seat of power. A solitary life it is not, for siblings reside in this place, overseeing the repetitions of life. Routine, though, it must become, even at the top of the world.

Floating in the middle of a lapis-toned sky, rings of silver and gold mesmerize as much as relax, even in the slow waltz that time strums for the dancers. The players keep pace, dutifully riding atop a hidden foundation that brings motion to the calm. A cacophony of mouthless teeth bite one another in turn, creating rotation where only urgency is outlawed.

A banquet table full of plates bridges the gap between intention and action where only spires and spindles intersect in the smallest of ways. Dappled with jewels, glimmering sheets of silver waves lap at the recesses deep within a sensual form.

Ingenuity is on display, clearly outlined without lines, spreading across a diminutive ocean. A richness of movement and reaction obscure the shimmering surface, back and forth like a golden fan, a king cooled by an equal partner.

This collaborator is a part of a whole, itself is less than whole, cored out to the most essential and weighed against the rest. Automatically critical, it flies where slow and steady are sacrosanct, marching perpetually uphill, secure in duty. Purpose has its purpose, a guidebook to help those in need of a compass or conviction.

As is the norm, a royal extension of form begins with a crown, a headpiece of character and intent. Dazzling detail for tactile tendencies, connections must occur in the most familiar of channels lest confusion pave the way for apathy. Directing the desires of our nimble digits is the primary motivation of a creator.

However much the interface accomplishes, the body must match. Sensuous curves are easily stymied by hard angles and proportionate mistakes. A graceful golem requires the magician’s touch; eagerness often produces monsters of terrible dimensions and frightening presence. It takes a true master to sculpt to the edge of function and maintain elegance in the face of possibilities.

Where frigid mountain gilding meets the warm remnants of death, suppleness entwines wearer with worn, flesh with flesh. Bars maintain a grip so tight that a new bond endures the rigors of existence. The whole of time is sequestered onto a limb of the tree of life, and in the absence of word, passion remains.

It is a burning, sensing, feeling passion that envelopes not only bone and carapace but the future of the here and now.

Time stands still, only we flow through it. Measurements made by self-reference cannot contain the multitudes of reality and understanding. Anonymity is the only estimation possible of what is and what can be. In obscurity, all things are; when defined, limits become etched in stone: one piece of time for you, and one for me.

But I wish to live outside of time, and unbound by determination and observation. Without marker, segment, detail, this can be true. It is only in the anonymity of absence that wonder reigns supreme.

For more information (in a less fanciful tone), please visit www.h-moser.com/en/news/11-2017.

Quick Facts Moser Endeavour Tourbillon Concept
Case: 42 x 11.6 mm, white gold
Movement: automatic Caliber HMC 804 with one-minute flying tourbillon, 3 Hz/21,600 vph frequency, three-day power reserve
Functions: hours, minutes
Limitation: 20 pieces
Price: $69,000 / 69,000 Swiss francs / €65,800