DAYS IN BETWEEN
(2020)
author(s): Marianna Christofides
published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research
In accordance to generic tropes in the way the Balkans are represented, conflicts in the region are repeatedly ‘naturalized’ in their description, and attributed geological-seismological features. With the essay film Days In Between Marianna Christofides and her collaborator Bernd Bräunlich recursively visited the Balkans between 2011 and 2015, at first seeking out littoral borders where the course of the boundary remains indefinite. Rivers as invisible yet politically instrumental borders was one of the initial narrative strands. Having lost the first few years worth of audiovisual material, the data on the hard drive being unretrievable, they decided to return, only to find that the places no longer existed in the same way. Both topography and social fabric in ceaseless flux. Their approach extended accordingly, now focusing on loss, omissions, obfuscation and disappearance. The appropriation of nature’s workings in political discourse came to the fore. As did the filmmaker’s inhibiting yet empowering fringe location. Through a reflective lens of doubt agency was re-calibrated. The project grew wider in a recurring attempt at approaching, and began to expand, up until the present and in multiple iterations. Within this non-finite process the constant failure, and the beginning anew, became integral parts of the narrative.
FACE NO DIAL OF A CLOCK. Investigating asynchronous experiences of present times by means of art
(last edited: 2025)
author(s): Laura von Niederhäusern
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
The subjective experience of time pressure in today’s efficiency- and performance-oriented society is fuelled by a paradox: acceleration is omnipresent due to economic and technological demands, while at the same time complexity and self-responsibility require more time for decisions.
This exposition examines individual and institutional ways of dealing with discrepant time demands. Where and how do different age groups experience divergent time regimes that occur simultaneously? Which techniques do individuals and institutions use or invent to synchronize different time perceptions, rhythms, and activities? How can artistic research create asynchronicity and make it experienceable through filmic means? And, finally, to what extent can filmic thinking produce ways of knowing that convey (as yet) unverbalized perceptions of time?
Methodologically, this research combines analytical and artistic approaches in an essayistic procedure comprising cinematic practice and writing. On the one hand, it explores different aspects of divergent perceptions of time in a series of case studies under the leitmotif of “asynchronous determinations of time.” Situated in both immaterial and care work, in which bodily and affective temporalities are highly important, these empirical investigations consider the role of lifetime (age, biography, memory) and temporal modes (tempos; imperatives, indicatives, subjunctives). On the other hand, this study develops specific artistic procedures for focusing perception by means of narration, fragmentation, montage, visual and linguistic interventions, extractions and interweavings. Since simultaneous non-simultaneities (tend to) overwhelm subjective experience, the procedures adopted in this research contribute to new forms of filmic thinking and images of thought. They should be understood as an incentive to empathize with different understandings of time.