Take Your Time.
 October 20, 2003 Merhan Nasseri has been waiting at Charles de Gaulle airport for 15 years. Although he was originally denied entry to France, the legalities have long been settled, he refuses to leave his airport oasis; choosing to live there with his 1,000-page diary and growing fan club. Nasseri has put the rest of his life on pause. |
||
|
Whether temporal or spatial, pauses are a form of disengagement; a process of productive inactivity. Just as white space is essential to defining a monochromatic image, pausing is essential to defining an experience. Blood moves in pulses, music rests between beats, eyes blink while looking, animals sleep to live. With the accelerating pace of contemporary life and businesses vying for our free time, pauses are becoming a cherished commodity. By inspecting or exaggerating pauses, we increase our understanding of them and their context, in both subject matter, and methodology. The Still Image |
||
|
Henri Cartier-Bresson coined the term ‘decisive moment’ to describe what he believed to be the essence of the photo-graphic image.1 Decisive moment refers to the single critical split second in which an event or experience culminates. The term also seems to define photography itself as a medium. It is the pause button to life around us. One frame equals one moment. Harold Edgerton, an MIT professor, made this moment infintesimally small. He used a pulse of light to expose high-speed events invisible to the naked eye and to shutter-based photography. The images show live action paused at a millionth of a second. Even more-so than a traditional camera, Edgerton’s photographs exemplify the still image. If Edgerton has mastered the infintesimally short pause, then alexander sokurov has mastered the lack of pause. Sokurov directed Russian Ark, a movie filmed in one only take. The movie shows the history of the Hermitage in one filmic sweep. The camera follows the lead actor through the building without a single break to reshoot. Although the film is continuous, the rooms of the palace act like pages in its accordian-fold type structure. A motion picture is a collection of still images. The Matrix created the illusion of a still image within a movie; appearing to pause the action. Using bullet time technology, cameras surrounded the set to capture a multi-lateral view of one moment. The moment is then presented within the movement of the movie. The woman suspended in the air is reminiscent of Jeff Koons’ ‘One Ball Total Equilibrium’ which itself seems paused, as if a still image. In my project ‘Player Pause,’ the viewer can turn moving images into still images by adjusting the frame rate of the video. By sliding the lever to the left, the viewer slows or stops someone in the movie. Each character in the video can have its own frame rate, allowing for unexpected inter-action and inactivity. Extended Pauses |
 . . . 1. HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON, The Decisive Moment. . . . |
|
|
In Halberstadt, Germany visitors that come to the Saint Burchardi Church to hear John Cage’s ‘Organ2’ usually hear nothing. The music piece was designed by Cage to be played as slowly as possible. It took a year and a half after its official start for the organ’s first note to play, and it will take another 638 years to finish the piece; leaving significant empty time in between notes. Vera Lutter makes photographs using a pinhole camera, taking hours to expose a large negative. Motion does not get recorded because it’s too quick for the camera; only objects that remain idle for many minutes are captured. Not only are the contents in the photograph at rest, but so is the camera itself. It is left idle, watching, as its subjects shift over time. The effect is much like holding a pen steady and moving the paper to make a drawing. Andy Warhol, too, uses a fixed camera position in his 1963 film titled Sleep. The film shows a complete night’s rest over eight hours. Much like the man in the movie, the viewer is tempted to drift off indecisively into unconsciousness. Like in a dream, you don’t have the forethought to know how long you will be in this altered state, and what awaits you after it ends. No Time |
 . . . ANDY WARHOL Sleep . . . |
|
|
Pauses are more noticeable when the norm is speed. James Gleick explains in his book Faster, that before the automobile defined a quicker way to travel, there was no slow way. Movement is slow only when it is compared to something faster. The dearth of empty time makes pauses dramatic even when they are brief. We now live in the Futurists’ century-old vision of speed, when walking the dog feels like we’ve turned into a Giacomo Balla painting. We are hurried in a flutter of motion, where pauses are quick respites from a Wile E. Coyote-like sprint after the Road Runner. When we’re not busy, we’re wondering why. Sitting still can create anxiety or perceived motion. Artist Jonathan Monk said that ‘if you stare at a blank page for long enough it starts to move.’ 2 Even the computer if left still for too long, starts to breaks into motion. Time-Warner Cable’s advertising campaign sites the importance of free time. It makes the promise of controlling time by pausing live television. ‘Stop and smell the roses.’ Pausing becomes a marketable commodity because we can’t pause reality. Scores of other businesses promote their product or service as time-savers. This advertisement appears on the back of an in-flight magazine; situated in a location full of dead time. Archis curated a special issue titled ‘All Times.’ It states, ‘Time spent waiting can take up a significant part of our lives. Can it be more than dead time?’ To counter the trend of businesses buying up our dead time, I made the project ‘Waiting Room: Proposals for poetry in transitional spaces.’ The type-based installations are seen only while in a short pause, for example in a check-out line. These messages were intended to add to, not distract from the introspective time in these spaces. Mind the Gap |
 . . . GIACOMO BALLA . . . 2. JONATHAN MONK. BIOGRAPHY. PS-1. 10 Oct. 2003. See entry |
|
|
The London Underground phrase ‘Mind the Gap’ can be translated to ‘note the empty space.’ The gap is the physical pause that exists between the moving car and the still platform. The emptiness defines the two spaces around it. The space between words is a gap that defines each word. Adjusting that space can make for incomprehensible letters, or a different meaning altogether. Because of the apostrophe, Beth Elliott’s words ‘Don’t urn away’ can be read without the normal ‘t.’ A collection of gaps can define an overall aesthetic. The text block in the book Informal, is actually two adjacent legs of copy. The gap is barely noticeable while reading, but provides a structure for the design. The gap from each row forms a vertical line; appropriate given the author’s work. Office DA’s model for a brick building also relies on gaps for its form. The building is constructed of standard bricks, but increases the space in-between them on one end of the building. The result is an organic form made from standardized units. Conclusion |
 . . . BETH ELLIOTT . . . |
|
|
Andy Warhol stated: ‘Sometimes the little times you don’t think are anything while they’re happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life.’3 Andrew Wiston of London would likely agree. After coming home one day to see his apartment window had been covered by a Microsoft billboard, he decided to take the matter into his own hands. Inviting onlookers and the media to watch, Wiston triump-hantly reclaimed the opening; carving away a piece of the billboard and reinstating the void. The advertising billboard was left with a gap, an absence; illustrating that pause in its lack of substance is the substance itself. |
 . . . 3. WIZ, “DAYLIGHT ROBBERY” . . . |
|
|
References Balmond, Cecil. Informal. Munich; New York: Prestel, 2002. Edgerton, Harold E. Electronic flash, strobe. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970. Elliot, Beth. “Don’t urn away.” In Exhibition Space. Santa Clarita, Calif: California Institute of the Arts. , 1995. Gleick, James. Faster: the acceleration of just about everything. New York : Pantheon Books, 1999. “Here’s a Concert Even Diehard Fans Can’t Sit Through; Played Slowly, John Cage Opus Will Last for 639 Years; Intermission in 2319.” The Wall Street Journal [New York]. 11 July 2003, Eastern Edi.: A1. The Matrix. Dir. Larry Wachowski and Andy Wachowski. Warner Studios, 1999. Russian Ark. Dir. Alexander Sokurov. Hermitage Bridge Studio, 2001. “Waiting for Spielberg.” Men’s Fashions of the Times Magazine [New York]. 21 September 2003. Section 6, 82. W.I.Z. “Daylight Robbery.” ResDVD. New York: RES Media Group, 2003. See next essay |
|
|
Master's Thesis,
Yale University
. . .
John Caserta