Exposition

The Atemporal Event (2021)

Helga Schmid, Kevin Walker
open exposition

About this exposition

The COVID pandemic has prompted many people to reconsider their previous living and working rhythms and to consider alternatives. We believe that the global enslavement to the standardised time of clocks and calendars has had a negative impact on us individually, socially, and environmentally. We aim, therefore, to change perceptions of time by helping people step outside societal time, treating time instead as a malleable material that can be stretched and moulded. This exposition describes our process, outcomes, and analysis in staging an event using an alternative approach based on natural and material time processes specifically related to the body and the external day/night cycle driven by light colour and intensity. In a twenty-four-hour event in London designed around chronobiological phases, we investigated our research question of how to change perceptions of time by treating it as a malleable material. We discovered that treating time as a malleable material necessitates first stepping outside of the clock-time system: in our case, using daylight and bodily chronobiological phases as alternative time-givers. Dialogues using linguistic and non-linguistic means between ourselves, our collaborators and participants, as well as with our tools and materials, resulted in treating time as place, and places and things in temporal terms. We discovered that time is not only stretchable but can take different shapes and qualities, with multiple times existing alongside each other, by 'programming' actions and activities through performance, rhythm, and materiality. Our research focuses on the broader issue of the ‘time crisis’ as identified by sociologists, chronobiologists, and philosophers, as a result of acceleration processes driven by digital technologies and contemporary 24/7 societal norms. We address this by bringing together Helga's research on ‘uchronia’ (temporal utopia or non-time) and Kevin's anthropological perspective on designing embodied experiences.
typeresearch exposition
keywordstime, Uchronia, performance, design, light, Experience, conversation
date30/12/2021
published30/12/2021
last modified30/12/2021
statuspublished
share statusprivate
affiliationUniversity of the Arts London / University College London
copyrightthe authors
licenseCC BY-NC-ND
languageEnglish
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/827680/827681
doihttps://doi.org/10.22501/jar.827680
published inJournal for Artistic Research
portal issue25. 25
external linkuchronia.world


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id name copyright license
827699 Wake up the authors All rights reserved
828250 Where's Wally by Lucy Mercer the author All rights reserved
829473 CB_Uchronia_036 Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
829476 Baum Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
829480 Baum+Leahy Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
829831 Drawing sequence Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
830378 Yaprak sequence Carl Bigmore / Kevin Walker All rights reserved
830391 Microbial Meditation workshop by Baum+Leahy Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
830392 Microbial Meditation workshop by Baum+Leahy Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
830396 https://nemesis.global/memos/umami Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
830397 https://nemesis.global/memos/umami Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
830400 Microbial Meditation workshop by Baum+Leahy Kevin Walker All rights reserved
830428 Microbial Meditation workshop by Baum+Leahy Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
830440 Federico Campagna Kevin Walker All rights reserved
830553 Laura Lorenzi Kevin Walker All rights reserved
830601 Project Instrumental Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
830631 Sleep Dome Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
831050 150 > 4Hz - Rhythmic Rocking Chair by Nick Ryan Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
831061 Designing time (1 of 9) Francisco Ibanez Hantke All rights reserved
831065 Designing Time Francisco Ibanez Hantke All rights reserved
831074 Wake-up Phase room Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
831349 Beholder by United Visual Artists Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
831355 Beholder by United Visual Artists Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
831359 Chronobiologist Debra Skene Kevin Walker All rights reserved
831360 Chronobiologist Debra Skene Kevin Walker All rights reserved
831477 Sleep Dome by Michaela French Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
831485 Laura Lorenzi Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
831490 Laura Lorenzi Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
831494 m.c. schraefel Kevin Walker All rights reserved
831495 m.c. schraefel Kevin Walker All rights reserved
831499 Project Instrumental Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
831501 Project Instrumental Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
831514 Project Instrumental Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
831517 Project Instrumental Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
831565 Concentration Phase music excerpt by Piotr Ceglarek Piotr Ceglarek All rights reserved
831584 Movement Phase music excerpt by Ronnie Deelen Ronnie Deelen All rights reserved
831593 Excerpt of 50lx - Sonic Exploration by Project Instrumental + borderlandstate // best kisser in la Project Instrumental All rights reserved
831651 Uchronia diagram redrawn from Charles Renouvier's book Uchronie Helga Schmid All rights reserved
831654 Uchronia diagram by Helga Schmid Helga Schmid All rights reserved
831655 Uchronia diagram by Helga Schmid Helga Schmid All rights reserved
831657 Uchronia diagram by Helga Schmid Helga Schmid All rights reserved
831658 Uchronia diagram by Helga Schmid Helga Schmid All rights reserved
831664 Diagram redrawn from Van de Velde (2003) Walter van de Velde All rights reserved
831743 Diagram from Charles Renouvier's Uchronie, redrawn by Helga Schmid Helga Schmid All rights reserved
831744 Uchronia diagram by Helga Schmid Helga Schmid All rights reserved
831745 Uchronia diagram by Helga Schmid Helga Schmid All rights reserved
831746 Uchronia diagram by Helga Schmid Helga Schmid All rights reserved
831747 Uchronia diagram by Helga Schmid Helga Schmid All rights reserved
832721 Bodily phases Helga Schmid All rights reserved
832746 Bodily phases Helga Schmid All rights reserved
833558 phases Helga Schmid All rights reserved
833623 Wake-up Helga Schmid All rights reserved
833631 Movement Phase Helga Schmid All rights reserved
833666 Nap Phase Helga Schmid All rights reserved
833685 Movement Phase Helga Schmid All rights reserved
833697 Intuitive Phase Helga Schmid All rights reserved
833713 Sleepiness Phase Helga Schmid All rights reserved
833725 Sleep Phase Helga Schmid All rights reserved
833773 BURN THE CHAIR says m.c. schraefel Kevin Walker All rights reserved
833816 Beholder by United Visual Artists Carl Bigmore All rights reserved
833832 Uchronia Manifesto Helga Schmid All rights reserved
833839 Uchronia Manifesto Helga Schmid All rights reserved
833954 Sleep Phase Helga Schmid All rights reserved
833955 Sleep Phase Helga Schmid All rights reserved
1270975 Uchronia book Helga Schmid All rights reserved
1271383 Minkowski space Kevin Walker All rights reserved
1274269 Phases_V2 the authors All rights reserved
1274272 Phases_V2 the authors All rights reserved
1274296 Phases_V3 the authors All rights reserved
1411592 Atemporal bodily phases Helga Schmid All rights reserved
1411597 Atemporal phases Helga Schmid All rights reserved
1411600 Atemporal phases Helga Schmid All rights reserved
1414429 Phases_V6 Helga Schmid All rights reserved
1473816 Phases_V8 Helga Schmid All rights reserved

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