Czapek & Cie. are marking their Czech heritage with the new Antarctique Rattrapante ‘R.U.R’, a watch that celebrates an iconic Czech author and playwright as well as the man who coined the term robot. So naturally the watch features a mechanised sculpture of a robot linked to an haute horological rattrapante chronograph.
The elephant in the room is obviously the robot so let’s start there. It’s located in pride of place at 12 o’clock with a polished head and colour changing eyes that reflect the current mode of the chronograph, changing when you press the pushers. Red for stop, yellow for start, blue for reset. It dominates the display with its looming presence and while it’s not aggressive (it even has a slight smile) there is a certain menacing quality to it, which is entirely intentional.
That’s because it’s based on a play from 1920 called R.U.R (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Czech author Josef Čapek. The name Čapek is actually the original Czech spelling of Czapek prior to being Gallicised and it’s that connection in both name and country of origin that led the watch brand to explore this author’s work. The play is incredibly famous in sci-fi circles for a number of reasons, primary among which is the fact that it is the first work in history to ever associate the word ‘robot’ with a mechanical person – inventing the notion of robots as we know it today. The etymology is based on the term ‘roboti’ which referred to a European style of forced labour serfdom.
The play itself centres on a factory producing robot labourers who then rebel against their creators, meaning the play not only introduces the concept of robots but also their most significant plot and literary device at the same time. It’s a discourse that would later lead to some of the most famous sci-fi works of all time like Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot as well as films like Terminator and Blade Runner. And now this progenitor text is being celebrated by the Antarctique Rattrapante ‘R.U.R’. It’s also more timely than ever given the explosion in AI and robotics in the past 12 months, let alone this century.
However, as I set out in the introduction, while the automaton robot with its colour changing eyes is a significant part of the watch, of equal importance is the horological elements. The watch features the SXH6 movement developed in partnership with Chronode. It’s an open-worked split-seconds chronograph movement that has been structured in a way to move the chronograph elements from their traditional position at the back of the movement to the front, dial side. It allows you to view the entire motion of the chronograph from a single view point – the activation of the pushers, engagement of the column wheels and movement of the hands.
This version of the SXH6 is actually even more complex than the standard version that has featured in previous Antarctique Rattrapantes because of the integration of the robot chronograph mode indicator. The various bridges and double column wheel serving almost as the machine’s exposed rib cage. It’s really cool to be able to see the activation of the split-seconds chronograph in action with the clamps that hold one of the two seconds hands in place while the other continues before releasing it to catch up. It’s this functionality that makes the Rattrapante great for lap timing or timing two events simultaneously and therefore the most prestigious type of chrono complication.
Rounding out the display are the chronograph subdials and peripheral minute and seconds track. Although you’ll notice that they don’t have Arabic numerals, or even eastern Arabic, Roman, Chinese or any other recognisable language. Instead, they have completely fictional numerals made up of lines and dots in a broadly XX shape. Though it’s actually quite easy to identify what each of the symbols represents because we know that the minute track is in intervals of 5 minutes, as is the small seconds at 7:30 and 30-minute counter at 4:30. I will say that it does feel like a little bit of childish wish fulfilment to put a fictional language on a watch and I would prefer it to be regular numerals.
The Antarctique Rattrapante ‘R.U.R’ is limited to 77 pieces, available from September 5th. Czapek also note that shipment will begin as soon as the order book is open instead of there being an initial production period as is typical in the industry. This is because this launch was originally scheduled for the summer but was delayed in order to coincide with the Geneva Watch Days showcase.
Price and Specs:
More details at Czapek.
