Project No. 1, Simultaneity

You have a container to fill. The size of the container is one minute. Anything outside one minute will be considered outside the container. You must fill the container with three different types of time.

The instantly the word "time" is brought up, a metronome comes to mind. After all, I spend a sizable amount of time each day dividing my time into a certain number of clicks per minute. I knew a metronome would have to represent one type of time, linear/metric time.

Stemming again from my experience as a musician and playing off the idea of mechanical time vs. organic time, I decided that the other two types of time I wanted to play with were time as experienced by a performer and time as experienced by an audience.

I've found that these three types of time have a complicated, sometimes vitriolic relationship as they mix and compete with one another within the container of a performance.

To combine these factors and ideas for the project, I set a metronome to 68 (slightly faster than 1 beat per second), but muted it. I then attempted to play exactly on each beat 68 times (one minute). It was fascinating to me the way time would speed up or slow down as I chased the ticking hand back and forth between beats. The monotony of the task required a surprising amount of focus on my part, but it must have been easy for the audience's minds to wander.

This mirrors the experience I have had in many performances; the role that one plays in a performance, performer or audience member, can have a dramatic effect on the way time is perceived. For a performer, it can feel as if ten minutes were compressed into three. For a bored or distracted audience, ten minutes can turn into fifteen.