Discovering a synced beat and melodious balance amidst the passage of moments
Artists Rework Our Understanding of Time
In the realm of contemporary art, a group of visionary artists are challenging our perception of time, drawing from natural and cosmic phenomena to redefine our understanding. Among these pioneers are Katie Paterson and Jonathon Keats, whose groundbreaking projects have caught the attention of the art world.
Scottish artist Katie Paterson works with ancient fossilized remnants of forests and insects, and carbonized chunks of meteorites that pre-date our galaxy. One of her most notable works, "Map of Dead Stars," traces stars that have already exploded but whose light is still traveling to Earth, providing a tangible visualization of cosmic time scales and linking astronomical time with human perception.
San Francisco-based conceptual artist and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats, on the other hand, has made a name for himself with his humorous yet thought-provoking remarks about time: "Everything is about time, really." His projects include monumental-scaled clocks engineered to run on "river time" or "arboreal time," challenging the concept of standardized atomic time and advocating for a more pluralistic view of time, suggesting the need for chrono-diversity.
Alex Braidwood, an audio producer and sound artist, specializes in multi-dimensional recordings of the dawn chorus. Many of his recordings were made just a few miles from his home in Iowa, offering a unique perspective on the rhythms of river time and the harmonies of the global dawn chorus.
These artists' works have been showcased in various contemporary art festivals and centers, often in boundary-pushing ways. The Time-Based Art (TBA) Festival in Portland, for instance, features visual and performance art projects that defy categorization and engage with time as a medium or concept, fostering experiences that blend past, present, and future perspectives.
Moreover, artists like Stephanie Syjuco and those featured in upcoming exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Center explore themes of memory and identity, which are deeply connected with personal and cultural temporalities. While these examples do not detail Paterson's or Keats' specific projects, they situate their conceptual focus within an active contemporary context where time is a powerful conceptual and material resource.
For artists or curators interested in presenting works about liminal or transitional times, events like the "Liminal Space- Space in Transit" exhibition in NYC explicitly invite interpretations relating to temporal transitions and thresholds, potentially encompassing concepts similar to those in Paterson's or Keats' work.
In summary, Katie Paterson's and Jonathon Keats' art projects represent a fascinating strand of contemporary art that uses natural and cosmic timeframes and phenomena to rethink time itself. These projects are exemplary of a wider contemporary art practice that includes performance, installation, and interdisciplinary work, which is actively featured in festivals, exhibitions, and calls for art exploring time, memory, change, and temporality.
[1] Time-Based Art Festival: www.timebasedart.org
[2] Stephanie Syjuco: www.stephaniesyjuco.com
[3] Contemporary Arts Center: www.contemporaryartscenter.org
[4] Liminal Space- Space in Transit: www.liminalspace.nyc
- The Time-Based Art Festival, found at [1], showcases series that defy categorization, delving into the realm of space-and-astronomy, education-and-self-development, and personal-growth, fostering experiences that explore temporal transitions and thresholds, mirroring the works of artists like Katie Paterson and Jonathon Keats.
- In the domain of education-and-self-development, one can delve into the field of space-and-astronomy through the works of Katie Paterson and Jonathon Keats, combining their groundbreaking series on time with that of Stephanie Syjuco, whose exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Center ([2]) explore memory and identity, furthering an understanding of personal and cultural temporalities.
