Performance introduction
We experience time spatially or, more accurately, in particular places: in urban neighborhoods and rural settings; in cars, airplanes, and foreign countries; on ubiquitous digital screens. And we experience places as they unfold to us over specific temporal periods, both in brief moments and through serial encounters. Human bodies—not watches—serve as our primary measuring device, whether we pay close attention to them or not. Senses activate to perceive some semblance of meaningful order in our lives: heartbeats and breaths syncopate, quickening or slowing down in response to various stimuli (the soothing touch of a friend, the smell of a favorite meal, the onset of a viral illness, the rush to make it to work “on time” ..).
But attempts to make sense of what Einstein labeled the “space-time continuum” often leave us confounded, with more questions than answers. It’s no wonder that contemporary artists are drawn to grapple with such slippery edges. Artists continue to craft formal proposals about human awareness of space and time—or our lack thereof. They explore how consciousness about this relationship impacts our personal psyches, social relations, political realities, and ecologies, both on a local and global scale. Arguably, we are in dire need of new forms of visual, performance, literary, cinematic, and digital works of art to help us better appreciate this messy and mysterious spacio-temporal territory, so much at the heart of our experience and collective behavior patterns. “
We experience time spatially or, more accurately, in particular places: in urban neighborhoods and rural settings; in cars, airplanes, and foreign countries; on ubiquitous digital screens. And we experience places as they unfold to us over specific temporal periods, both in brief moments and through serial encounters. Human bodies—not watches—serve as our primary measuring device, whether we pay close attention to them or not. Senses activate to perceive some semblance of meaningful order in our lives: heartbeats and breaths syncopate, quickening or slowing down in response to various stimuli (the soothing touch of a friend, the smell of a favorite meal, the onset of a viral illness, the rush to make it to work “on time” ..).
But attempts to make sense of what Einstein labeled the “space-time continuum” often leave us confounded, with more questions than answers. It’s no wonder that contemporary artists are drawn to grapple with such slippery edges. Artists continue to craft formal proposals about human awareness of space and time—or our lack thereof. They explore how consciousness about this relationship impacts our personal psyches, social relations, political realities, and ecologies, both on a local and global scale. Arguably, we are in dire need of new forms of visual, performance, literary, cinematic, and digital works of art to help us better appreciate this messy and mysterious spacio-temporal territory, so much at the heart of our experience and collective behavior patterns. “