As part of the online durational festival »It’s about time«.

We are in front of the image as in front of time, a past time that we observe, that we look at in the present. It seems close to us but it comes from far away, a time that has passed but not yet passed…… A memory in a way.
This image vibrates with questions. It looks at us, observes us too, questioning ourposition, at what moment did we look at it, why, in what context.The image is thus a temporal braiding where the past, the present which lasts,which lasts…. as if time had not passed

When the image appears, the story is „dismantled“ in all directions, deconstructed.It is a way of rethinking the relationship with our past by giving it, through our eyes,a future, a perspective of the future. A way of deconstructing stereotypes firmly fixed in the collective memory.

This project is about deliberately examining the past as an active moment that accompanies, of a mobile and light nature…
Indeed, the idea is to think of the past as an ally that moves forward and never stops transforming itself.
An archaeological work, to desecrate the historical legends, the perennial stereotypes, firmly anchored in the collective heritage.

Talking about discrimination, prejudice or racism means talking about time, but also about images: caricatures, objects, political or propaganda posters, advertising or leaflets, photographs or paintings… Many media have conveyed the representation of the „Other“ as a being stigmatised in his or her difference, be it ethnic, religious,cultural or sexual. They are part of a visual culture that has contributed for centuries to shaping truncated relationships, marked by psychological violence and even extermination.

Nowadays, even the art world seems to have convinced itself that it is not concerned with discrimination, and forgets that public museum collections are full of looted works. Worse, invisibilisation has a mirror effect: the overexposure, almost marketing, of a handful of artists considered „non-white“. A new politically correct exoticism has slowly been established. If one tries to address the issue, most of the time languages are tied up in theatres and art centres refer to the programming they dedicate to „diversity“.

Understanding what is not apparent

A few years ago, the Austrian artist Christian Eisenberger gave me an undated photograph that once belonged to the collections of the Museum für Völkerkunde in Vienna. This black and white image of black women doing their hair, with their breasts exposed, was not taken by just any photographer, but by Heinrich Harrer. Harrer, the mountaineer, the explorer, the hero, whose myth was brutally shattered one day in the spring of 1997, when a young Austrian journalist, Gerald Lehner,came to present him with the contents of a file that had been lying dormant for more than fifty years in the archives of the Third Reich kept in Washington. A pinkfile. „Harrer, Heinrich, born on 6 July 1912. SS, Section 38, Number 73896.“Harrer denied it, got carried away, until the reporter laid an SS application on the table. „Is this your handwriting?“ „Yes.“ We do not know where the photograph was taken. We can only speculate. Most probably during one of his many expeditions, such as the one during which he made the first ascent of the Carstensz pyramid in Western New Guinea, the highest point in Oceania, in 1962… Beyond appearances, what is at stake in this picture is the relationship between Nature and Culture. What probably moves Harrer here are these „wild“, naked, „pure“, „innocent“ beauties, indulging in an aesthetic ritual intended to make them even more beautiful, while in Europe the crises follow one another…

Hair is at the centre of the photograph. Far from the barbarity of the shearing of prisoners, camp inmates, women accused of „horizontal collaboration“ during the Second World War, here the hair is intended to reveal intimacy, seduction and, beyond that, an underlying sexuality.

The question of the off-screen obviously runs through this photograph. What about the off-screen when it comes to memory and transmission? Wouldn’t it be to the field what holes are to memory, gaps to history, unspoken words to speech?

Trying to understand what is not apparent, what is not there, in front of us, what is not presented and tangible, seems to me to be essential before we can imagine being able to project ourselves into the future.

We often hear that, in any case, „history is doomed to repeat itself“? This idea of repetition cancels out any possibility that history, historical events, will bring something new. History would be the continual repetition of the same, as in an eternal restart. One has the impression that history, since it does not bring anything new, somehow escapes man, who undergoes it but does not make it. It is as if history is autonomous and man is not an actor. If we affirm that history repeats itself, we obliterate in a way, we omit the question of freedom in history: man would not be „free“ to act and transform the world since everything would systematically return to the same thing. Yet is man not, by essence and because of his quality as an agent, free, unpredictable, at least partially? Is history not also the result of human actions?

History, rather than being a simple repetition, would then be in part a source of novelty, of surprise, of the unexpected.

Thinking about history?

„Only the present is, the before and after are not; but the concrete present is the result of the past and is full of the future. The true Present is, therefore, eternity“, said Heidegger in Being and Time (1927).

In front of each image, as in front of Heinrich Harrer’s photo, we must know how to reverse our position and ask ourselves how this image looks at us… How it thinks about us, how it touches us. The inversion of the positions between the viewer and the object being viewed allows us to enlarge the field of vision of history.

Fighting against invisibility, naming in order to make it exist, seem to me to be the indispensable conditions for appropriating our thoughts and our existence. Naming our present differently, characterising it differently, produces new points of view from which new questions and answers, new collective subjects asking these questions and affirming these answers can appear.

In »A deep quicky sweep« the idea would be to share selected images and to decipher the different layers of this hatred of the Other in a historical, cultural and thematic perspective. To understand the construction of this discourse over time is to participate in its deconstruction…

A striking visual history.

12’, dt. with engl. ST 

DE/ES/AR, 2020

Im Rahmen von IAT – It’s about time

»Ich will mehr Zeit.
Genau, ich will mehr Zeit!
Gib mir mehr Zeit.
Dass man auch mal mehr machen kann.
Sonst würde das Leben ja langweilig werden, wenn es keine Zeit gibt.
Abends geht die Zeit schlafen, morgens steht sie auf.
Genau wie wir, das machen wir auch.
Das machen im Moment ganz viele.
Und was machst du?
Wozu hast du nie Zeit?«
(Station 17)

Im Rahmen von »It’s about time« treffen sich vt corp. (Max Gadow und Hannah Müller) ingesamt sechs Mal mit jeweils einem Gast, um sich dieser Sache anzunähern. Beginnend mit der Frage, die jeder Gast beantwortet haben muss: »Wofür hast du nie Zeit?«
Und dann nehmen sie sie sich, die Zeit. Kurz oder lang, entspannt oder gestresst. Auf jeden Fall eine Auszeit. Bis die Zeit aus ist. Dann hört es auf.

Gib mir noch Zeit | Keine Zeit | Time of your Life | Was ist Zeit | Auszeit | Siesta ist ein Onlineformat, dauert genau so lange, wie es sich eben ergibt und wird live aus dem Ballhaus Ost ausgestrahlt.

17. Dezember 2022
Das Jahr neigt sich dem Ende zu und Xmas lauert vor der Tür.. Der Stress steht uns auf die Stirn geschrieben denn unsere Uhren zeigen alle das gleiche an: KEINE ZEIT, KEINE ZEIT! Also down the rabbit hole it goes: Wofür hatten wir dieses Jahr so gar keine keine Zeit? Was habe ich alles verpasst zu erledigen? Welche Geschenke müssen noch besorgt werden? Was mache ich, wenn ich mit Weihnachten nichts am Hut hab? Und was musst du unbedingt noch tun, damit du so richtig smooth ins Jahr 2023 rutschen kannst? Für all diese Fragen und Sorgen versuchen wir in der vorerst letzten Sendung von »Gib mir noch Zeit | Keine Zeit | Time of your Life | Was ist Zeit | Auszeit | Siesta« Antworten zu finden. Oder eben aber auch nicht !!! Denn zu Gast ist diesmal: die Überraschung! Und dafür nehmen wir uns kurz vor Xmas ausnahmsweise mal so richtig viel Zeit .

16. Juli 2022 | – fällt leider aus-
Elizabeth Prentis aka Lizzie hat nie Zeit um ihre Seele in der Natur baumeln zu lassen und sich mal so richtig zu entspannen. Auch wenn sie die Natur gar nicht so mag, denkt sie man sollte sich das schon mal gönnen. Genauso wie ein leckeres Essen, in Lissabon am Strand zu liegen und zur Maniküre zu gehen. Das mag Lizzie besonders gerne und deswegen nimmt sie sich auch Zeit dafür, obwohl die Zeit ihr eher davon rennt. Trotzdem möchte sie nicht noch mehr davon haben, denn das ist immer mit Stress verbunden. Ist Lizzie nicht gestresst, dann benötigt sie auch nicht mehr Zeit, weil sie diese ja dann bereits genießt. Könnte Lizzie die Uhr zurück drehen, dann würde sie am liebsten als Lerche verkleidet zu den Dinosauriern fliegen. Das fände sie cool. gestreamt aus Lissabon.

22. April 2022 | mit Monika Oschek:
Monika Oschek hat nie Zeit zum Inlineskaten. Vor allem das Bremsen kommt immer zu kurz und die Kissen aus Madeira, die müssen auch endlich bestickt werden. Außerdem fragt sie sich, wer eigentlich erfunden hat, dass die Zeit so lange dauert, wie sie eben dauert.
Sie trägt keine Uhr, dabei hätte sie so gern noch mehr Zeit. Wahrscheinlich damit sie dann Karaoke singen, Werwolf spielen und Choreographien tanzen kann. Denn dafür hat sie auch kaum Zeit.
Für Monika stoppt die Zeit genau dann, wenn sie mit Wodka der Sonne entgegen durch den Wald läuft. Das klingt vielleicht nach Alkoholismus, ist es aber nicht. Wodka ist ihr Hund und für den nimmt sie sich immer Zeit. Und für Wellness. Am liebsten mag Moni die Uhrzeit 14 Uhr, weil da die besten Sendungen auf Vox laufen. Oder 18 Uhr. Da kann sie dann endlich Feierabend machen.
Es beginnt um 18.30 Uhr und dauert so lange wie es eben dauert.

25. Februar 2022 | mit Felizitas Stilleke:
Felizitas Stilleke hat nie Zeit, um über die Jahre gesammeltes auf Ebay zu verkaufen oder sich mit Kapitalanlagen zu beschäftigen. Sie trägt eine Uhr am rechten Handgelenk, hat ganz schön viel Zeit und hätte gerne noch mehr – keine Frage! Keine Zeit zu haben findet sie aber auch gut, weil ihr das so richtig Dampf unterm Kessel macht. Und so wie Dampf stellt sie sich auch die Zeit vor, farblos und strömend – oder so wie Wind. Sie ist definitiv eine Leule, geht also gerne spät ins Bett und steht genauso gerne früh auf. Sie wird 109 Jahre alt werden, aber mit dem Tod braucht man ihr nicht zu kommen. Sie hat Geräte, um die Zeit zu stoppen, weiß aber, dass das der Zeit eigentlich egal ist.
Letztendlich wartet sie jeden Tag bloß darauf, dass die Uhr 23:10 anzeigt – ihre Lieblingsuhrzeit.

As part of It’s about time

»Time is something that scares me … or used to. This piece I made with the two clocks was the scariest thing I have ever done. I wanted to face it. I wanted those two clocks right in front of me, ticking.«
Felix González-Torres, 1991

»12 Months — A Year« is a durational film project by ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS made as part of the online festival »It’s about time«.

Starting in November 2021, Aslan and Gylee will create and release a five-minute film every month for one year. Each monthly chapter will be released on the final day of the month and will add to the previous films, accumulating in real-time. The full 60-minute work will be completed and released on 31st October 2022.

»12 Months — A Year« is inspired by durational artforms including the soap opera, the serialisation of the novel in the 19th century, films that stretch and compress time (»Empire«, »24-Hour Psycho«, »The Clock«, »Boyhood«), and the inevitably diverging clocks of González-Torres’s sculpture »Untitled (Perfect Lovers)«.

Simple questions with formidable answers: We ask who we are now, who we will be a year from now, and what the nature may be of the trajectory between these two points in time.

»This was fiction and yet no one knew where the story was headed because time was its unpredictable collaborator.«
Kate Kellaway, interview with Richard Linklater & Ellar Coltrane, 2014

ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS work in the fertile ground between disciplines, combining visual art, performance, choreographic methodologies, and research. The two performers, originally from Manchester and London, employ (auto)biographical narrative as well as meticulous research on the realities of Queer lives in their poetic works.

October
»I started out in search of ordinary things
How much a tree bends in the wind
I started telling the story without knowing the end …«
Bill Callahan, »Jim Cain«, 2009

September
»Sometimes you bend down to tie your shoe, and then you either tie your shoe or you don’t. Every choice begets at least two worlds of possibility. It’s possible, too, that there is no such thing as one clear line or strand of probability, and that we live on a twisted braid, blurring from one to the other without even knowing it, as long as we keep within the limits of a set of variations. Thus the paradox of time travel ceases to exist, for the Past one visits is never one’s own Past, but always somebody else’s; or rather, one’s visit to the Past instantly creates another Present (one in which the visit had already happened) …«
Joanna Russ, »The Female Man«, 1975

August
»The places we are born come back. They disguise themselves as migraines, stomach aches, insomnia. They are the way we sometimes wake falling, fumbling for the bedside lamp, certain everything we’ve built has gone in the night.«
Daisy Johnson, »Everything Under«, 2018

July
»We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don’t know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can’t accept it for what it is.«
Stanisław Lem, »Solaris«, 1961

June
»I seem to keep thinking things have already happened. When you asked if I remembered about the party and the ceremony, I thought you meant, did I remember having gone to them. And I did remember. I seem to have fallen out of time …The party and ceremony are tonight. In the future … In a way, I understand. But, you see, I seem to have gone into the future, too. I have a distinct recollection of the party that hasn’t happened yet. I remember the award ceremony perfectly.«
Michael Cunningham, »The Hours«, 1998

May
»‘Love’, this English word: like other English words it has tense. ‘Loved’ or ‘will love’ or ‘have loved’. All these specific tenses mean Love is time-limited thing. Not infinite. It only exist in particular period of time.«
Xiaolu Guo, »A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers«, 2007

April
»When was that? When did I stop getting old? Time passes by me like the wind. Maybe the cord that bound me to time broke when I lost my words.«
Yoko Tawada, »Scattered All Over The Earth«, 2018

March
»I believe in an alchemy of time … I believe we can make time … Does naming time generate time? Rehearsal is a great name for time, solitude another. Clock into darkness. Clock into leave. Falling, a time. What if we all agreed to live a year on moon time shunning the sun … The most crucial and most queer thing I can say is that these thoughts are all about that which is unseen in time. All that exists and goes unnamed, uncounted, disregarded. In a queer life you use and re-use shards of time, search out references, create your own constellation and pull small threads forward. You dig and discover all that was, in its time, against the continuity of its time.«
Every Ocean Hughes FKA Emily Roysdon, »Uncounted«, 2012-2015

February
»You know, I’ve got a funny feeling // I’ve seen this all before. // Why? // Cause I’m a caveman. // Why? // Cause I’ve got eyes in the back of my head. // Why? // It’s the heat. // Standby. // This is the time. // And this is the record of the time.«
Laurie Anderson, »From the Air«, 1982

January
»The threads of time have their knots and tangles, and every so often there is a symmetry, every once in a while something repeats, as if refrains and motifs were controlling them, a troubling thing to notice. Such order tends to overburden the mind, which cannot know how to respond. Chaos has always seemed more familiar and safe, like the disarray in your own drawer«
Olga Tokarczuk, »The Books of Jacob«, 2014

December
»The way one does research into nonexistent history is to tell the story and find out what happened. I believe this isn’t very different from what historians of the so-called real world do. Even if we are present at some historic event, do we comprehend it — can we even remember it — until we can tell it as a story? And for events in times or places outside our own experience, we have nothing to go on but the stories other people tell us. Past events exist, after all, only in memory, which is a form of imagination. The event is real now, but once it’s then, its continuing reality is entirely up to us, dependent on our energy and honesty. If we let it drop from memory, only imagination can restore the least glimmer of it. If we lie about the past, forcing it to tell a story we want it to tell, to mean what we want it to mean, it loses its reality, becomes a fake.«
Ursula K. Le Guin, »Tales from Earthsea«, 2015

November
»Something changed in the world. Not too long ago, it changed, and we know it. We don’t know how to explain it yet, but I think we all can feel it somewhere deep in our gut or in our brain circuits. We feel time differently. No one has quite been able to capture what it happening or say why. Perhaps it’s just that we sense an absence of future, because the present has become too overwhelming, so the future has become unimaginable. And without future, time feels only like an accumulation. An accumulation of months, days, natural disasters, television series, terrorist attacks, divorces, mass migrations, birthdays, photographs, sunrises … We haven’t understood how space and time exist now, how we really experience them.«
Valeria Luiselli, »Lost Children Archive«, 2019