to the surface
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2023
2023
2023
2023
2022
2022
2022
2022
2021
2021
2021
2021
2021
2020
2020
2019
2019
2021
2021
2021
2021
2020
2020
2019
2019
to the surface
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2024
2023
2023
2023
2023
2022
2022
2022
2022
Art’s Dance with Time; Transcending a Linear Nature
Puck Wacki
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future.
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
-T.S. Eliot, “burnt Norton”[1]
A minute has 60 seconds, an hour has 60 minutes, a day 24 hours and a year has 365 days. And then again and again in an infinite cycle of rhythmic patterns. But what is this measurement of time? In reality, there are different definitions of time: scientific time or clock time (used to divide our lives into units) and time felt, our own perception of time passing. Often we feel like time is flying by, that there is never enough time. When in 2020 COVID hit, everything felt like an endless cycle of nothingness. How is it that we can measure something called time, but this fixed measurement isn’t in sync with our own feeling of the duration of time?
Is our language behind, on the fast pace of our technological developments? With the introduction of the Industrial Revolution, we constructed Western society around a machine (the clock) based on natural phenomena that we lived by. These natural phenomena, the rising and setting of the sun, the position of the moon and its tides, were eventually put aside. We have become slaves of our own invention.
We think of art within space, whereas time is most often seen as the boundary of deadlines for the duration of(for) an artwork. But isn’t art more a way to occupy time rather than space? This is the question that curators Hans Ulrich Obrist and Philippe Parreno asked in the exhibition “Il Tempo del Postino”[2]. In this thesis I am going through the misconception of time, where I highlight the beauty of anti-clock - conceptions of time that go against clock-time - in intentional or in unintentional artworks. Where I ask the question; Can art change or manipulate our experience of time, can we find beauty in works that consciously or unconsciously play with our feeling, perception and the idea of anti-clock? Through three different case studies, I will try to demonstrate how this concept should be implemented within art.
A Western View on a Western Time
Time has no unity,
Time as western man knows it can be found back in the International System of Units (SI), where a second is based on the vibrations of the cesium-133 atom[3]. This definition allows for extremely precise and accurate timekeeping.
But what is this rhythmic repetition of vibrations?
In 1907 Henri Bergson came with the theory of duration, where duration is a theory of time and consciousness[4]. He divided time in the concept of science and that of humanity. For the individual, time may speed up or slow down, whereas, for science, it would remain the same.
Until 1905 this definition of scientific time may have been true, based on Isaac Newton's notion of absolute time. He believed that there was one time, this time would be the same everywhere, for whoever measured it[5].
Before Newton, time for humanity was the way of counting how things changed. Before Newton, no one had thought it possible that a time independent of things could exist[6].
However, an absolute time is also not true for the scientific field. In 1905 Einstein came up with the Theory of special relativity where time is considered relative[7]. This means that each observer has his own measurement of time. By speeding up or slowing down time changes.
This scientific notion of time, that is mathematically composed plays a big role in human lives.
So time is not absolute, it changes depending on speed and mass. But how is it that we live by one fixed time, the clock, a machine that had a radical influence on the social construct of human society?
We see time as the clock, but the clock and time are not the same thing. Clocks have given us the ability to agree on what time is, a universal time. They create an objectification of time, a social invention, a construct of the human mind. We can’t see, hear, smell or touch time. We have no way of sensing it at all[8]. It is an act to control and perfect. There is no such thing as the sense of time.
Lewis Mumford a philosopher of technology wrote about the effect the clock had on the actions of man in his essay Technics and Civilisation, 1934.
“…the clock is not merely a means of keeping track of the hours, but of synchronizing the actions of men. Where Abstract time became the new medium of existence. Organic functions themselves were regulated by it: one ate, not upon feeling hungry, but when prompted by the clock: one slept, not when one was tired, but when the clock sanctioned it[9].“
As where George Woodcock a Canadian writer later elaborated on this in his essay The Tyranny of the Clock, 1944 Where he not only talks about the act it has on man but also its beginning of capitalism.
“The clock turns time from a process of nature into a commodity that can be measured and bought and sold like soap or sultanas. And because, without some means of exact timekeeping, industrial capitalism could never have developed and could not continue to exploit the workers, the clock represents an element of mechanical tyranny in the lives of modern men more potent than any individual exploiter or any other machine. It is valuable to trace the historical process by which the clock influenced the social development of modern European civilization[10].“
So with the rise of the clock, we became slaves of our own invention. It was an extension of man where we used it as a tool to control man as an act to become “better”. Here we lost our rhythmic life of a natural being. “We become the servant of the concept of time[11].”
Is there a way out? What did Bergson mean when he said “For the individual, time may speed up or slowdown[12].”
As Individuals we can feel a different kind of time where our emotions can distort our sense of time. We have some kind of clock in our brain that when we feel bored, stressed or lonely we obsessively count every beat. But when are busy, relaxed or social our mind is doing other stuff and therefore it will skip a lot of beats whereas it seems like time is flying by[13].
There are no clear conclusions on how humans feel time.
But there is a general understanding of the order of time, with the future in front of us and the past behind[14]. We have constructed everything around us, our whole lives, in this linear way. But linear time is just clock time as Arie Altena said[15]- it was created to serve a capitalistic world.
Music
Hilary Jeffry (musician) said in the interview with Arie Altena in the book Time Travelling[16]. “When music is read through notation in the Western tradition, it is typically done so in a linear fashion.” Western Music scores are rhythmic scores that only go forwards, it is constructed on clock time based on using the rhythm of a metronome. For our language it is the same.
Language happens sybil after the other therefore we listen in a linear way we recognize sounds as words that are pronounced one after the other. Without the one before or after we can’t make a sentence and therefore wouldn’t be able to communicate.
This linear approach of our language and how it affects our experience of time is illustrated in the movie Arrival[17]. The movie offers a new perspective on how our linear language shapes our understanding of the past, present, and future. The film is about the problem of contact, of translation, the impossibility of communication between two incommensurable worlds. The human language and that of the aliens. The Heptopods, the alien species, have landed in twelve countries and sent incomprehensible messages, prompting the urgent need for deciphering and understanding their intentions. The protagonist, a linguist, alongside her colleague, has given the task to decipher the language of the aliens and communicating with them in order to understand their intentions. During this time pressure arises from impatient politicians, who would prefer to solve the problem with aggressive solutions.
The assumption is made that the aliens must have a language and a form of writing to understand one another. The first contact is being made by the humans introducing themselves by writing the letters of the alphabet onto signs and writing words, such as human, and then pointing to herself and her college. The aliens accept this offer of communication and create curious signs from their toes with the help of an ink-like fluid. With this, an intensive deciphering process begins under constant political pressure to resort to force.
Still from Arrival. (2016)
Each of these signs, with which the aliens communicate, is based on the circle, a structural order contrasting significantly with the linear structure of human language represented by the alphabet and speech sounds. While humans can only express themself discursively within a chronological sequence based on the dimension of time. The aliens are able to communicate in a synchronous order, facilitated by their circular nature of language, in which there is no beginning and end, nor a before and after.
By studying their language and getting to understand it the protagonist gains a form of perception that transcends time, in which the past, the present, and the future flow together at once. The film highlights the potential liberation in transcending linear thinking, extending beyond mortal boundaries such as death.
The science-fiction film “Arrival” looks at the limits of human thought. What now resolves around our human ability and consciousness to only see time linear. It takes us into a possible evolution of the human brain, which will allow humanity to experience a new way of thinking in forms that transcend time[18].
The whole social construct of live is based on this linear way of thinking, it is always one after the other, and one or the other (binary). We cannot see time as something that happens simultaneously. So, if everything we know comes to recognize of this linear/binary way of thinking[19]. Are we even willing to see it as something that is not, are we able to accept?
Look at quantum theory. I will not look into the scientific explanation of it but rather at the different perspectives it can give us. Our machine and technology-based society exists out of data information that is constructed out of 0s and 1s. It’s binary. It is always one or the other, it is never both. So, information is consistently processed sequentially, one item at a time, allowing us to perceive change in the present moment. But this is again a linear way. The main principle of quantum theory is the idea that it is not 0 or 1, but it is them both at the same time, also called the Superposition. This is the ability of a quantum system to be in multiple states at the same time until it is measured. So, everything is and happens simultaneously. It has no specific place and time. This is a very rich perspective that can help us move away from our linear way of thinking. The development of quantum computing can compute everything at the same time, contrary to a normal computer where every action happens at a super-fast speed one after the other. This happens faster than a human can experience therefore it feels like it happens instantly, but this is not the case whereas for quantum computing it is.
But now they are writing systems to use these quantum computers to get the best possible result out of the input. So yet again looking for one outcome after the other. To find the best out of everything the fastest. But we should look at how can we use or see this perception of different time. Is it not something new and beautiful, something that has no specific time and or place? It is not 0 or 1. It is all of it everywhere at the same time. No construct to move forward to be better to find that one perfect answer. It is an act we don’t seem to recognize or the beauty that it has. An act to deconstruct our perception of what time can be.
So, the reality of what we think time is, is simply an interpretation of our perception that we created. I think that taking time as an individual medium for looking at art we can find new and different perspectives that we otherwise would have never seen because our perspective is set to what we think time is. And therefore, I want to ask the question. Can art change or manipulate our experience of time, can we find beauty in works that consciously or unconsciously play with our feeling, perception and the idea of anti-clock? The following case studies will demonstrate different perspectives.
On Circular Time and Repetition
Is a circular time a kind of repetition or an act to blend out irregularities?
I am sitting in a room, Alvin Lucier, 1969
Lucier is sitting in a room where he speaks a text into a microphone. Attempting to smooth out his stutter;
“I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have[20].”
I am sitting in a Room, Album cover
I am sitting in a room is a work that reflected differently on the meaning of space and time, where it goes through the motion of audio and repetition by man-made machines. Speaking into a microphone, recording onto electromagnetic tape, which is subsequently played back through speakers and re-recorded onto electromagnetic tape.
Lucier talks about the relationship between sound and space. He is interested in the transformation of speech within a space, the resonance of the room. He performs the same text in different places (spaces), where every space has its own resonance. This influences the length (number of repetitions) to blend out his speech and the sound representation of that room. All factors in a room and the room itself have influence on the piece. While the physical ‘space’ stays the ‘same’ during the duration of the piece, the perception over time is changing through the act of repetition and mediation through the technology (man-made machines) he uses.
The duration of the piece influences our perception by the repetition that unfolds over time.
It blurs out our Western idea of language, something we perceive in a linear way. Our language exists out of audio - hearable waves, called Frequency - that can form compositions that we call words. Arranging words sequentially creates the feeling of progressing through time, where we can look ‘back’ at the words that have already passed. Saint Augustine a theologian and philosopher describes this by a hymn in his XIth book, the Confessions:
“When we listen to a hymn, the meaning of a sound is given by the ones that come before and after it. Music can occur only in time, but if we are always in the present moment, how is it possible to hear it?[21]”
Carlo Rovelli showed Augustine’s observation in his book The Order of Time:
“It is possible, Augustine observes, because our consciousness is based on memory and on anticipation. A hymn, a song, is in some way present in our minds in a unified form, held together by something—by that which we take time to be. And hence this is what time is: it is entirely in the present, in our minds, as memory and as anticipation[22].”
By the repetition through the technology in the room, the audio loses its original frequency’s and blends in with the frequency of the room. Through this action, Lucier blends out every irregularity within his speech. This is where we leave the linear line. If the speech ages out and only the resonance of the room is left and you keep on repeating this action, there is no way for someone to know where it starts and where it ends. There is no way to recognize words with our memory to make up logical things, we are handed over to the sounding of the space where time is deconstructed.
So is this more an act of repetition to strive for perfection? Or can we see the hidden beauty where he has deconstructed our understanding of our linear structure of the alphabet and human speech sounds. Whereas man can only express himself discursively within a chronological sequence based on the dimension of time. But with the deconstruction, of the language, we aren’t able to perceive words, there is neither a clear beginning or end nor a before and after. This is where time becomes circular.
In and Out of Sync
Untitled (Perfect Lovers), Felix Gonzalez-Torres, 1991.
"Untitled (Perfect Lovers), 1987-1990. Installedin Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Michael Jenkins, and Tim Rollins + K.O.S. Jay Gorney Modern Art, New York, NY. 20 Oct. – 20 Nov. 1990. Image courtesy of Jay Gorney Modern Art."
Gonzalez-Torres' work Untitled (Perfect Lovers) exists of two perfectly in sync clocks hanging next to each other. Gonzales gave detailed instructions for the display of the clocks this became an important element of the piece itself. The clocks must be of exactly the same dimensions and design/type. The clocks must also be set to the exact same time. If one or both of the clocks stops functioning, the clocks are deinstalled and repaired, then reinstalled and reset to the same time, this instructions allows the piece to last forever to be infinite.
These perfectly in sync clocks will eventually fall out of sync due to their individual mechanisms and battery lives. The work refers to a lifespan of two lovers: one will die first, it symbolizes the natural course of relationships and the passage of time, where perfect unity eventually flows in divergence and loss. We have no control over time. Time is dominant and we are his servants.
The work however needs humans to correct and perfect the work. Have we become the machines here to keep it perfect? It is interesting to look at how this work may represent the short-lived nature of life, where we as humans are trying to perfect it knowing that eventually there will be an end. Rather than accepting it, we go against the concept of our lives ending. The human allows time to be reset, there is no room for accepting that the live has come to an end, only the restriction of infinity. Therefore this work gives a very interesting perspective of how we view the short-lived nature of human life, in contrast with that of the unknown duration of the human species itself.
Expectations of Events
4’33, John Cage, 1952
4’33 is a modernist composition composed in 1952 by John Cage. It was composed for any instrument or combination of instruments, the score instructs performers not to play their instruments during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements.
The piece was first called the ‘silent piece,” it was to make people listen. “There’s no such thing as silence,” Cage said, at the première. “You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out.”
The first time Cage performed it he seated himself at a piano and placed a score on the stand, set a stopwatch, closed the lid and sat quietly for 33 seconds. Briefly opening and then re-shutting the lid, re-setting the stopwatch and sat for two minutes and 40 seconds. He repeated the process, this time for one minute 20 seconds. Finally he stood, bowed to polite applause from the remaining audience and walked off stage[23].
The three-movement ‘silent piece’ was in total 4 minutes and 33 seconds and so got its name 4’33.
John Cage.4′33″ (In Proportional Notation). 1952/53. Ink on paper, each page: 11 × 8 1/2″ (27.9 × 21.6 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the generosity of Henry Kravis in honor of Marie-Josée Kravis, 2012. © 2013 John Cage Trust
This score of Cage is such an interesting work, because of the interplay between the performer(s) and the audience. The performer(s) knows the score, but doesn’t know the duration. And the viewer holds an expectation, of a beginning. This is where tension lies, in the unknowing, and the waiting. Arising a feeling of impatience, earlier we established that individuals can feel a different kind of time, where it can slow down or speed up. In this work the waiting can make it feel like time is going slower, as if it is stretching out. We are expecting something, something that should have started at a certain time. We lose our patience and try to fill the time of waiting, by talking, moving around or leaving.
These expectations go hand in hand with our clock time. As we saw earlier in Mumford’s text the clock indicates structure and punctuality, as he said “…one ate, not upon feeling hungry, but when prompted by the clock: one slept, not when one was tired, but when the clock sanctioned it[24].” This work is a beautiful illustration of how we became servants of the clock, we see how we have lost the power to experience the beauty in the silence by a lack of events. Being so hooked on this given clock-time, expectations overrule, and time seems to pass by slower.
Time in Space, Space in Time
Hans Urlyg asked: ‘What if having an exhibition is not a way to occupy space, but a way to occupy time?[25]’
Performance and concerts don’t represent this. They have a specific duration and often unfold in linear time. They are rather an example of forms of time limitations where there is a set time slot so that everything runs smoothly within the given time moving forward to the end of the event/happening. Looking at the work; 5 weeks, 25 days, 175 hours by Maria Eichborn, one could say that the time frame of the exhibition can also be seen as this time limitation[26]. But in my eyes, this exhibition is an exact repetition where an exhibition is not a way to occupy space but a way to occupy time.
Image from Chrisenhale Gallery, London (2016)
In Eichhorn's exhibition, 5 weeks, 25 days, 175 hours, None of Chisenhale’s employees will work during the period of the exhibition and the gallery and office will be closed, implementing ‘free time’ in the place of work. It is an act of anti-clock, against our capitalistic feeling of having to be productive. Work can also consist of doing nothing. This is a great example of how time becomes the most important element rather than the space. This connects to what Hans Ulryg proposes.
Conclusion
Time has no unity, there are different definitions of time; scientific time or clock time and time felt. Therefore, the meaning of time can always be questioned. There are no clear conclusions on how humans feel time. But there is a general understanding of the order of time, with the future in front of us and the past behind. We most often see time as clock time. But this clock time is constructed by man as a tool, a machine to control and perfect. Where we live life as the servants of the clock. This time made our entire way of thinking linear. Where we have come to construct everything around us, in this linear way. But linear time is just clock time, created to serve a capitalistic world.
Time has become a boundary whereas art should act as its liberation.
In Lucier work I am sitting in a room, our linear understanding of language is being deconstructed, where we enter a state of circularity. Gonzales plays in his work Untitled (Perfect Lovers) with our idea to perfect time where we try to look beyond our own lifespan and enter an idea of infinity. Cage score 4’33 illustrates how we are trapped in clock-time, acting as its servants. Being so hooked on this given time, expectations overrule, and time seems to pass by slower.
So if time can be seen as something that slows down, is circular, goes beyond a human life span, and also has the ability the overpower space, then anti-clock should be a medium. If anti-clock would be a medium it could be thought and played with to raise questions of our perceptions of time. I find it weird to think that we don’t get time taught as a medium, but rather as this form of happenings as limitations and/or deadlines. Where we have learned to live by these guidelines of punctuality.
If we are able to find the beauty of anti-clock in art and artworks, we should be able to implement them in our technological society. We can look at the ideology behind quantum physics as an act of liberation for our technological world where things happen linearly. Quantum physics introduces the possibility that things can happen simultaneously and are not bound to a specific time and place. To reflect on a new way of looking at our world instead of being limited to our linear clock time. I want to open up the question; How can this new perspective be implemented into our society?
Time is not bound to the clock nor are we.
Footnote:
[1] Thomas Stearns Eliot, “burnt Norton (No. 1 of 'Four Quartets'),” in Collected Poems 1909–1935, ed. Robert Josephy (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1936), 213.
[2] Nancy Spector, “Time Frame: Politics and entropy in an exhibition about duration,” Frieze (October 2007).
https://www.frieze.com/article/time-frame
[3] “SI base unit: second (s),” Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, accessed January 7, 2024, https://www.bipm.org/en/si-base-units/second
[4] Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics (New York: Dover Publications) 11 - 14.
[5] Stephan Hawking, A Brief history of time (London: Transworld Publishers Ltd, 2011), 21
[6] Carlo Rovelli ,The order of time, trans. Erica Segre and Simon Carnell (New York: riverbed books, 2018), 47
[7] Special relativity, Albert Einstein, “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper,” Annalen der Physik 17 [1905]: 891–921)
[8] Posner, Joe and Ezra Klein, dirs. Explained Explained: Time, S3.E12, oct 1, 2021, Dean Buonoman (neuroscientist)
[9] Lewis Mumford, Technics and civilization, (London; Routledge & Kegan Paul ltd, 1934), 12
[10] George woodcock, The tyranny of the clock, (First published in 'War Commentary - For Anarchism' mid-march 1944)
[11] George woodcock, The tyranny of the clock, (First published in 'War Commentary - For Anarchism' mid-march 1944)
[12] Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics (New York: Dover Publications) 11 - 14.
[13] Posner, Joe and Ezra Klein, dirs. Explained Explained: Time, S3.E12, oct 1, 2021, ruth ogden (psychologist)
[14] Amalia Groom, Time Documents of contemporary art, (Cambridge, The MIT Press, 2013)
[15] Sonic Acts, Travelling Time, ed. Arie Altena (Amsterdam: Sonic Acts Press, 2012), 15-17.
[16] Sonic Acts, Travelling Time, ed. Arie Altena (Amsterdam: Sonic Acts Press, 2012), 190-199.
[17] Villeneuve, Denis, director. Arrival. Paramount Pictures, 2016. 1hr.,56 min. https://www.primevideo.com/-/nl/detail/0H7L0EY2GIKM49X7W1XE17TW5U/ref=atv_sr_fle_c_Tn74RA_1_1_1?sr=1-1&pageTypeIdSource=ASIN&pageTypeId=B07RYQ6NGM&qid=1708116029683
[18] Aleida Assmann, Never ending stories the loop in art, film, architecture, music, literature, and cultural history. (Berlin: Hartje Cantz Verslag GmbH, 2017), 81.
[19] Binary describes a numbering scheme in which there are only two possible values for each digit -- 0 or 1 -- and is the basis for all binary code used in computing systems. It can be 1 or 0 it cannot be them both at the same time.
[20] Collins, Nicolas. ""I Am Sitting in a Room" Album notes". Archived from the original on 18 August 2017.
[21] Carlo Rovelli ,The order of time, trans. Erica Segre and Simon Carnell (New York: riverbed books, 2018), 108
[22] Carlo Rovelli ,The order of time, trans. Erica Segre and Simon Carnell (New York: riverbed books, 2018), 108
[23] Classical Music, “What is the point of John Cage's 4’33”?”, BBC Music Magazine, 2021.
https://www.classical-music.com/features/works/what-is-the-point-of-john-cage-433
[24] Lewis Mumford, Technics and civilization, (London; Routledge & Kegan Paul ltd, 1934), 12
[25] Nancy Spector, “Time Frame: Politics and entropy in an exhibition about duration,” Frieze (October 2007).
https://www.frieze.com/article/time-frame
[26] “Maria Eichhorn: 5 weeks, 25 days, 175 hours” GalleriesNow, 2016.
https://www.galleriesnow.net/shows/maria-eichhorn-5-weeks-25-days-175-hours/