But what about non-human time cycles? The life of a moth, for example, or a train timetable, or the rate at which trees are dying?

For Canberra artist Anna Madeleine Raupach, time exists in many different realities, and it's something that has preoccupied her since well before coronavirus became enmeshed in our daily reality.

Her latest installation, currently on show at CMAG On the Square, Canberra Museum and Gallery's outside, glassed-in exhibition space, is an enthralling exploration of the different ways of measuring time.

Unequal Hours is made up of 25 clocks, all ticking at programmed speeds based on different natural, technological and local time cycles. The clocks' hands are all connected by coloured ribbons that tangle and form patterns in unison, showing how different time cycles are constantly intersecting. It's both simple and complex, and a mesmerising way to spend a few minutes, or even an hour, as you cross Civic Square en route to the bus, or tram, or carpark. Once there, your actions will be dictated by yet another time cycle - a timetable, or a parking metre, or, most likely, an ordinary wristwatch.

It's a far cry, Raupach points out, from our earliest ancestors who lived by the seasons and the sun.

"My main aim with the work is to rethink how we conceptualise time as humans and compare that, and put that measurement of clock time into a bigger view, with more perspective," she says.

The work represents cycles like the Canberra light rail schedule, a woman's menstrual cycle, and the migration and hibernation cycles of Bogong moths. She's also got long-term natural cycles accounted for, the longest of which is the cycle of Halley's comet, which is 76 years.

"The fastest clock - and this is quite bad, really, and depressing - is the deforestation clock which goes at 3.1 seconds, or 100 square metres of trees that are cut down globally," she says.

"And I've compared that to a kind of average lifespan of a eucalyptus tree, which is 350 years."

She's also added a pair of clocks comparing how long it takes to earn $50 for someone on minimum wage, compared to a member of parliament's average salary.

"I've put all those things kind of in dialogue with each other, letting the ribbons that connect them all become tangled, to show how these timescales intersect and how they also influence each other, and the consequences of one falling out of sync with the other," she says.

"I've had to go in a couple of times so far and do some tweaking and untangling to fix it up, which is all part of the concept."

Raupach, currently a lecturer at the ANU School of Art and Design, says she hopes people will stop and notice what's happening inside the ribbon-strewn glass case.

You can take it in, she says, "by standing in front of it and kind of working out all the intricacies of the concepts, and what the colours mean.

"I think it's also quite interesting just to look at as a visual form as well, looking at how the lines are moving and that kind of rhythm that's being formed... The clocks take on new characters where they can't quite get around, or they're ticking in an unusual way, and getting tied up with each other, too. So I think every time you go past, it will be different."