Keeping Time
(in 2 Parts)
Overview
When we speak of “keeping time,” we’re often referring to a “clock,” whose name derives from the Latin clocca, meaning bell. Early mechanical clocks relied on bells to signal times for prayer before they evolved into highly calibrated instruments regulating the circular motion of hands in relation to calibrated marks on a similarly circular dial.
Rather than accept the way these circular mechanisms influence socially constructed images of time, any thing that changes in a predictable manner could be considered a clock. After all, an atomic clock depends on oscillations in the nucleus of an atom and the surrounding electrons. The universe contains a multitude of phenomenae that change in a predictable manner, like the seasonal transformation of trees, or the dissolution of sugar in water.
Instructions
Develop a personal device for measuring time. This could relate to your interests, perceptions, habits, practices, or other agenda.
This could begin with a strategic transformation of the mechanical or digitial clocks we know well.
It could also depart from the conventional entirely, leverageing some phenomenon of predictable change or specific phenomenae as a measure: physical, geological, biological, ecological, economic, hydrologic, sonic, climatic, celestial, etc.
Schedule
Part 1 (one week)
1. Written Brief
Write a brief using this Prompt as a model (Overview, Instructions, Schedule, Required Reading, Optional Reading, Relevant Tutorials (if applicable), Other References)
2. Schematic Design
This is a drawing that describes the anticipated outcome, its constituent parts, and materials.
Part 2 (one week)
Fabricate the operational piece (OR) produce a physical model of the piece (OR) refine the design drawings to a high level.
Required Reading:
Gilles Deleuze, Intuition as Method, 1966.
Joshua Foer, A Minor History of Time without Clocks, 2008.
Robert Smithson, Entropy Made Visible, 1973.
Optional Reading:
Richard Carrigan Jr., Decimal Time, 1978.
Mitsura and Kiwotaka, Units of Time in Ancient China and Japan, 2004.
Relevant Tutorials
Other References:
What is an Escapement?
How a Watch Works, 1949.
Long Duration Observation (Perspective)
Overview
“To question the habitual. But that’s just it, we’re habituated to it. We don’t question it, it doesn’t question us, it doesn’t seem to pose a problem, we live it without thinking, as if it carried within it neither question nor answers, as if it weren’t the bearer of any information. This is not longer even conditioning, it’s anaesthesia. We sleep through our lives in a dreamless sleep. But where is our life? Where is our body? Where is our space?
How are we to speak of these ‘common things’, how to track them down rather, how to flush them out, wrest them from the dross in which they remain mired, how to give them a meaning, a tongue, to let them, finally, speak of what is, of what we are.
What’s needed perhaps is finally to found our own anthropology, one that will speak about us, will look in ourselves for what for so long we’ve been pillaging from others. Not the exotic anymore, but the endotic.“
George Perec, The Infra-ordinary, 1973
Instructions
1. ‘Write a space’ as it unfolds.
With George Perec’s An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris as a model, write for at least four hours on one day (or for at least one hour on at least four days): exhaustively taking an inventory of every thing, being, action, sound, climatic condition or other observable phenomenon that unfoldsw.
There can be no “etcetera.”
Perec re-constructs St. Sulpice as a text. Rather than focusing on the exotic, he attends to the ‘endotic,’ the “infra-ordinary,” and the mundane. He assumes a methodical, objective voice and is judicious in avoiding personal commentary or interpretation. Similarly, when an event in the space reoccurs, Perec’s text correspondingly repeats, and so repetition comes alive on the page. This is a poetic form of observation.
2. With the space transcribed, use the text to produce a work in another medium.
Taking the long-duration observation as a script, use it to direct the production of a visual work. This could be a drawing, a model, a play to be performed, a sound or musical piece, a film, etc.
Relevant Tutorials
If editing sound Audacity might be useful.
Required Reading:
George Perec, An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, 1974.
Optional Reading:
Celeste Olalquiaga, Dust, 1998.
Rebecca Solnit, The Ruins of Memory, 2007.
Other References:
N/A
Long Duration Observation (Retrospective)
Overview
After a few hours in Arches National Park, the sublime experience of scale slowly exposes a sublime experience of time.
This happens with a shift of focus: moving from the overall figural forms of the mountains and geological masses to the striations of texture and color on their surfaces. Slowly, one feels a kind of reverse vertigo, as if walking on an ocean floor, realizing that there used to be a ground plane hovering hundreds of meters above one’s head, and that the apparent stillness of the hulking figures and masses of rock are actually falling ever-so-slowly in a hundreds-of-millions-of-years-long process of weathering and erosion.
Like a puzzle of fragments scattered on a table, relations begin to appear. It seems like it should be possible to reconstruct or replace each of the durable hunks of rock into their original position. Meanwhile, one is aware that the dust under one’s feet is probably the residue of masses that have been pulverized into small particles by eons of weathering and erosion.
Examining elements visible in a contemporary landscape, attempt to reconstruct their primordial or previous positions. You may use photographs, drawings, or another medium of your choice.
Instructions
Choose two moments in the entropy of a landscape (natural or urbanistic). One moment should be in the present. The other should be in the past.
Devise a technique (drawing, collage, montage, model, or other) to visually compare the present state to the past state, noting what elements have endured or remain continuous and what have disappeared.
Once these two states have been visuallly established, devise a second drawing system to trace the passage of time between them. (You may need to conduct additional research.) Questions may emerve about whether to integrate these changes into a single drawing or to curate instances to describe changes across the longer interval of time. How long do changes take?
Relevant Tutorials
- N/A
Required Reading:
Bryon Roberts, A Brief History of Time Reversal, 2022.
Optional Reading:
Jon May, Timespace: Geographies of Temporality, 2001.
Robert Smithson, A Tour of the Monuments of the Passaic River, 1967.
Uya Kabakov, The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away, c. 1977.
Tom McDonough, The Archivist of Urban Waste: Zoe Leonard,
Photographer as Rag Picker, 2010.
Adrian Stokes, The Pleasures of Limestone, 1934
Other References:
Michael Landy, “Breakdown” (link)
Long Duration Observation (Prospective)
Overview
“At my request, my mother went to a detective agency called “Duluc”. She hired them to follow me, to report my daily activities and to provide photographic evidence of my existence. The investigation was conducted on April 16, 1981.”
In 1981, the artist Sophie Calle requested that her mother hire a private detective to log her movements and photograph her activities as she, without his knowledge, recorded her experience of being watched.
She later assembled the two reports side-by-side in her piece La Filature (The Shadow).
Instructions
Using Sophie Calle’s La Filature as a model, work with a partner to produce two different reports of the same unfolding events. These could be structured, as Calle did, with one partner surveilling the other. You could also devise another way to relate to one another -- for example, surveilling each other, or recording your own impressions. That’s up to you. Regardless of how you choose to relate, both partners must be precise in maintaining (1) a leger of observations, noting the time of day and perhaps durations of each entry, and (2) a visual companion to the notes, which could take the form of documentary drawings, photographs, sound recordings, or video.
Ideally these written and visual ledgers would unfold across several days, or weeks.
Upon completing the independent ledgers, put them together into new composition. Depending on the visual medium, this composition could be resemble La Filature (The Shadow), or be mixed into a film, sound piece, or other form/format.
Relevant Tutorials
If editing images or drawings, Photoshop and InDesign might be helpful.
If editing sound, Audacity might be helpful.
If editing video, Adobe Premier might be useful.
Required Reading:
Jean Beaudriard, Please follow me, 1983.
Optional Reading:
Sophie Calle, The Detective.
Doreen Massey, Some Times of Space, 2003.
Other References:
N/A
Bracketing
Overview
Translate the principle of photographic bracketing to a drawing, painting or other manual medium.
Instructions
Via a manual medium (draw, paint, sculpt), render the exact same thing 7 times via a sequence of increasing and decreasing exposures.
- second 1 second
- decasecond 10 seconds
- hectosecond 100 seconds
- kilosecond 1000 seconds
- hectosecond 100 seconds
- decasecond 10 seconds
- second 1 second
Take stock of the effect of time and timing on the process of production.
Then, compose another work in any medium of your choosing, devising a time-related constraint for yourself.
Relevant Tutorials
Required Reading:
Adrian Heathfield, Thought of Duration, 2009
Optional Reading:
George Woodcock, The Tyranny of the Clock, 1944
Hans Belgting, The Theater of Illusion, 2000
Sigmund Freud, A Note Upon The Mystic Writing-Pad, 1925
Other References:
Mark Evanstein: - Suite for Computer Assisted Music in Python (SCAMP)- SCAMP Tutorials
- Informant and Timbreland
- Rhythm of the Primes
- Making of the Rhythm of the Primes
- Counterflow
David Bruce:
- 100 year old Polyrhythms Vs. New Polyrhythms
- MicroRhythm
- How the way you talk affects the music you write
Sequence Diagram
Overview
Sequence diagrams are used primarily to understand the time-elapsed interactions between objects (things, actors, phenomae, etc.) in the sequence that those interactions occur.
In computer science, these diagrams establish a dashed vertical lifeline for every object in the system. There can be as many as needed to describe all the objects participating in the system. When an object is active, a narrow rectangle shows the duration that it is “on.” Perpendicular to the lifelines are arrows denoting some kind of message (a call, a transaction, or other interaction between objects). Sometimes there are conditions that must be met before an action can continue (e.g. you must show identification or pay a fee before acess is granted to a space or an item is received.)
Instructions
Observe a situated activity or environment as it unfolds over time.
Identify all entities or participants: humans, objects, atmospheres, non-human actors, environmental changes - everything that plays a role in shaping interactione. Construct a notation on a roll of paper, by hand, in Astah, or Adobe Illustrator.
Every entity (environment, human, non-human, object) should have its own “lifeline.” When a that entity acts or changes state, a slender rectangle indicates the start and end of that action. Interactions are drawn with various kinds of arrows to indicate that one object/participant has sent a request, object etc. to another. Sometimes a request is literally verbal - “please pass the salt”, but it can take different forms - like a gesture, a non-verbal trigger, a reaction, or an environmental change - “the lights dim”. Sometimes the recipient of a message reacts (passes the salt). Sometimes the recipient replies with a message -“I don’t have the salt.” Sometimes there is no response. And sometimes there are conditions that must be met before a response is generated to a request.
Relevant Tutorials
Required Reading:
IBM Sequence Diagrams, also here.
Optional Reading:
Timothy Barker, Recomposing the Digital Present, 2011
Rebecca Hill, The Interval, 2012
Christophe Girot, Vision in Motion, Representing Landscape in Time.
Lyster, Clare, Landscapes of Exchange.
Other References:
Procedural Drawings
Overview
A procedural drawing is distinct from other kinds of drawings.
It depends on a predefined set of rules. The rules can be improvisational, relational, prescriptive (i.e strictly followed), or take some other form -- but they are to be planned in advance. To fulfill or test these rules, the drawing also depends on each participants’ respect and patience in carrying them out to completion.
In a sense, a procedural drawing begins with a kind of recipe. When the recipe is faithfully followed it generates an outcome that can be evaluated, critiqued, and changed. This critique becomes the basis for altering the recipe -- to satsify an anticipated outcome or to address the drawing technique to a subject matter of concern.
Other References:
https://conditionaldesign.org/
Process
The process is the product.
The most important aspects of a process are time, relationship and change.
The process produces formations rather than forms.
We search for unexpected but correlative, emergent patterns.
Even though a process has the appearance of objectivity, we realize the fact that it stems from subjective intentions.
Logic
Logic is our tool.
Logic is our method for accentuating the ungraspable.
A clear and logical setting emphasizes that which does not seem to fit within it.
We use logic to design the conditions through which the process can take place.
Design conditions using intelligible rules.
Avoid arbitrary randomness.
Difference should have a reason.
Use rules as constraints.
Constraints sharpen the perspective on the process and stimulate play within the limitations.
Input
The input is our material.
Input engages logic and activates and influences the process.
Input should come from our external and complex environment: nature, society and its human interactions.
by Luna Maurer, Edo Paulus, Jonathan Puckey, Roel Wouters
1. Conditional Narrative Machine
adapted from Conditional Design
Setup
This drawing can be produced by not less than 2 participants.
All participants share one large sheet of paper.
Play
In each round participants have one minute to draw.
After each round, every player should take turns explaining their action.
Slowly, a story may develop.
In round (1) one, each participant should:
- add an industrial element
- add a natural element
- add a human element
- add a fantastical element
In round (2) two, each participant should make a drawing that:
- infects an existing element
- attacks an existing element
- defends an existing element
- improves an existing element
In round (3) three, each participant should:
- redesign a condition
- add detail to an existing element
- make a relationship
- simplify an existing element
- illustrate change
In round (4) four, each participant should:
- add time
- add a condition
- add a constraint to an element
- add or remove something at random
- produce a message
- produce a method
- add an existing datasource
- create a new data collection
End
After the first four rounds, vote to continue, repeating the rounds, or to start another drawing. If starting a new drawing, adjust the rules in some strategic way and repeat.
2. Kaleidescope
adapted from Conditional Design
Setup
- Each player has one color pen.
- The paper is divided into imaginary zones, in which each player operates. The number of zones corresponds to the number of players
- Each turn a player is either leader or follower.
- The players decide which person may be the leader first.
Play
- Clockwise in turns a player is the leader, for approx. 60 sec. The other person or people are the followers.
- The leader draws freely in their zone using only straight lines.
- The followers must mirror the drawing of the leader, synchronously while they are drawing.
End
Once everyone has taken two turns as the leader, the last players to follow can either decide to continue the drawing or to start a new drawing. If a new drawing, players must adjust the conditions and repeat.
3. Long Lines
adapted from Conditional Design
Rule
- This drawing can be done individually or with partners.
- Draw one line for [30 min] without your pen leaving the paper.
- You may stop for a maximum of 5 seconds without lifting the pen.
- Don't cross another line.
End
After 30 minutes, adjust the rules in some strategic way and repeat.