Animation released for Benedict Cumberbatch’s audiobook reading of The Order of Time

Last week, Penguin announced that Benedict Cumberbatch will be reading the audiobook for physicist and author Carlo Rovelli’s novel The Order of Time. Today (15 March), to accompany the audiobook’s release, the esteemed publishing house has released a one-minute-long animation, which features a delicate golden web that shapeshifts into characters and various other time-related images.

The promo was directed and produced by animators Sam Aldridge and Joseph Botcherby, both of whom worked on Rovelli’s previous book Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. Rovelli’s latest novel is divided into three parts, each of which explore time in all its abstractions. The first section runs through what we already know about time; the second part imagines a timeless world; and the third reflects on how humans conceived a “flow” of time in a timeless world.

On their animation, Sam and Joseph comment: "The work focuses on our finite understanding of time. Our aim was to create a piece which incapsulated this often overwhelming lack of comprehension; Carlo Rovelli’s work not only excels in being vast and poetic but also extremely approachable. Ever-changing branches of time spread out across the screen as our protagonist, alone, advances onwards. As mere seconds pass we drift through the history of human development, highlighting a sense of briefness to it all.” The audiobook will be available on 26 April 2018.