Time Art

[sobeystudio]

<p>Relating to exposure. Because time is continuous by nature and photography is perceived to stop time, photography is not time art, as it would have to be continuous.<br>

Theoretical. A photograph is 2 dimensional. You add time. Now you have 3 dimensions. Does it share qualities with sculpture or volume specifically? <br>

What place does space/time (Einstein's) occupy within the photographic canon?</p>

<p> </p>

[felixg]

<p>Not really connected to your post, but...<br>

MS> Does it share qualities with<br /> MS> sculpture or volume specifically?<br>

For me, personally, photography's strongest connection to another medium is to sculpture. In its most basic "record" form, it concerns itself relation of objects in space.<br>

Its second strongest connection (again, for me personally - I make no gclaims that this view has bigger application than that) is to story telling, which relates objects in time.</p>

[richsimmons]

<p>You only capture a moment in time. "Does it share qualities with sculpture or volume specifically?" No. There's no real Z axis in a photo. X being left and right, Y being up and down, Z being depth. You can have the illusion of depth, but unlike a sculpture, it's not really there. </p>

[JDMvW]

<p>You need to read Suzanne Langer, <em>Philosophy in a New Key</em> .</p>

<p>And in my book, cinema <em>IS</em> photography, anyhow.</p>

[sobeystudio]

<p>JDM- It will be my next read.<br>

Rich- In the "moment" yes it has volume, but the aftermath generally no. So does sculpture occupy 4 dimensions? Maybe not occupy, but utilizes? <br>

Felix- Storytelling and time- sounding like cinema, no.<br>

Thanks everybody its shaping up nicely.</p>

[valjalbertphotography]

<p>A moment is like the limit of an inverse exponential function. The elapsed time interval approaches zero the closer you get, but will never reach zero. While you can never capture a perfect moment, you can approximate it. But the closer you approach, the the harder it is to reach. No matter how short the exposure time becomes, there will always be motion blur, hypothetically speaking. But when the imaging system's resolving power is smaller than the blur itself, you effectively have a good enough representation and can label it a pure moment.</p>

[starvy]

<p>the question you raise is very much based on your very particular understanding of time. so the question fits the answer and vice versa.</p>

[richsimmons]

<p>4 dimensions for sculpture. Yes, because even though it sits there, it's still taking up time. Which is measurable.</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>Photography with a time dimension is called "movie" or "video." It's as simple as that.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Martin--</p>

<p>I wonder if we need to consider the differences among "photography," "the photograph," and "taking the photograph." You say that "photography" is considered to stop time. Wouldn't it be the photograph that does that? If photography includes the shooting process and the post processing, there's a lot of time involved in those. It's the reason I've heard so many photographers say they can get into a rhythm when they are shooting or in the darkroom or at the computer. The photo is different from the shooting is different from photography as a whole. Photography requires time (to develop a history, to move from one photographer to the next, one era to the next, to be learned and understood). The photograph seems the least to be involved with time, at least in a certain way. Of course, the photograph can refer to time or associate us with time, though it doesn't take up time in the same way music does. As Jeff says, that would be a movie or video. It may, of course, take the viewer time to look at the photograph, but that's the viewer taking the time, not the photograph itself taking time.</p>

<p>One of the qualities it shares with sculpture, painting, architecture, music, is Form. Langer will expand on that. She'll also talk about Feeling and the role of symbolism inl art, not just as in the train going through the tunnel kind of symbolism but as in the manner in which expression from artist through artwork to viewer occurs.</p>

[thomas_sullivan]

<p>errrrr.....Spirer took the words right out of my mouth.....heh...</p>

<p>....but, having actually explored the concept myself.....<br>

<a href="http://www.photoblogsmagazine.org/magazine/july2005/julytssullivan.php">http://www.photoblogsmagazine.org/magazine/july2005/julytssullivan.php</a></p>

<p>this is what I ended up shooting</p>

[sobeystudio]

<p>Starvy- so true!<br>

Fred- I agree, time can be found in several varying aspects of photography- as with anything. So is "time art" really a good "name" for photography as art- or just a catch phrase? I do think the <i>photographs</i> deal with time too. I, specifically, let my photographic installations deteriorate and change over time as part of my process, so time has an alternately critical place within the work. And speaking of deterioration, don't those yellowing photographs from decades past represent time, at least fundamentally, not just their subject. <br>

Thanks everybody for some good thoughts:)</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Martin--</p>

<p>Yes. I agree about your installations and about the yellowing deterioration. Good points.</p>

<p>Yet I still sense a difference with music. The key to your second example seems to be something happening to the photograph over time. So that the yellowing photograph is very much a full-fledged photograph before time starts deteriorating it. A piece of music can't be still. It can be silent, in John Cage's world, but it still took about 4 minutes and 30 seconds to execute it. I'd have to think more about how to describe it, but giving it a shot here, it seems like music happens <em>in</em> time whereas time is doing something <em>to</em> a photograph. Your installations seem more related to the way time works in music though I'd say that music has a specified time frame and your installations do not.</p>

<p>Would you ascribe any difference, in terms of time, between a photograph and a piece of music?</p>

[Julie H]

<blockquote>

<p>What place does space/time (Einstein's) occupy within the photographic canon?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Martin,</p>

<p>I think the photographic time is not particularly peculiar in the <em>mechanical</em> process or the nature of photographic exposure. I think it <em>is</em> peculiar in its umbilical connection to what's "out there." Imagine time as an infinite deck of cards. Imagine each time-card as being 1/125th second in thickness. A painter can (figuratively) pick a card, cleanly, out of that deck to as his/her subject.</p>

<p>A photographer can't do that; you can't extricate one card, cleanly. When you take a photographic card out of that time deck, it (what it means) always brings with it ghostly remnants of the cards before and after it. A photograph is <em>rooted</em> in time. Your card/image/time/exposure will always be inextricably "sticky" with the neighboring cards in the time deck.</p>

[sobeystudio]

<p>Fred-<br>

As you had noted previously, photography has many connections to time or timing throughout the process. I would think music being <i>in</i> time is much like the shooting aspect of photography- sharing the moment with the medium- does that make sense? A photograph itself would be like a musical recording which can be re-introduced and taken out of time/space at will- but exists in its own unique time/space. Thanks Fred.</p>

<p>Julie- Great analogies! I'm still working on the mental images- umbilical cords to time and sticky spaces:) However, if you remove a card form an infinite deck, it ceases to be infinite, albeit<i> really big</i>!</p>

[freewolf]

<p>Martin... I wouldn't really equate the aspect of time as an element of the act of photography with music being "in time" (as I think that phrase is being used here). It's more like the rehearsal of the musical piece, the instruments being set up and tuned, everything involved with the piece until the moment the conductor marks the first beat with his baton (however figuratively, depending on the type of musical performance). The product of the act of photography and the product of the musical performance are radically dissimilar, though. What stands as the photographer's output (the final image) is far less dependent on time, and much more loosely so, than most musical pieces can be said to be. While one can gaze at a photograph for as long or as short as one likes, and may appreciate it the longer one spends with it, no particular length of time is really required in order to have observed the image. Not so with music... to "observe" the piece as a whole, one MUST commit the necessary length of time. We can't listen to any piece of music "all at once".</p>

<p>Consider the concept of rhythm in each. In music, rhythm is entirely time-dependant, unless we include in this definition the visual rhythm of the stage set of the performance. The concept is no less important to photography (in terms, again, of the product), but is almost entirely visual in nature ("almost" in that, as Fred and others mention, the image and its visual rhythm, composition, etc., may <strong>evoke</strong> a sense of action/time).</p>

<p>I find that more than a few of the images that really impress me are ones that do suggest or encourage a sense of time, that compel my eye around the frame <em>over time</em>, finding details and relating them to each other, exploring fore-/background relationships, etc. These do indeed suggest a sense of depth or volume very similar to sculpture and ceramic work, although I'm not sure this "z-axis" is necessarily time-oriented. It's often tricky to make such metaphorical leaps, and I'm not sure how far they can be carried in discussion before they lose coherence, but it's rewarding when it happens and clicks with me intellectually and aesthetically.</p>

<p>JDM's suggestion re: Langer is an excellent one. No other book of an academically philosophical nature has had more of an influence on me as a musician. I'd be very surprised if I reread it (it's been over 20 years!) with photography in mind and was not similarly rewarded. With Fred, I second the motion...</p>

[jtk]

<p><strong>Julie H:</strong> <em>"A photograph is rooted in time. Your card/image/time/exposure will always be inextricably "sticky" with the neighboring cards in the time deck."</em></p>

<p>Extraordinarily interesting image. Thanks!</p>

<p>HOWEVER (you knew that was coming) if one inherits several hundred photographic prints and negatives , a century one's familes, little seems "inexticably sticky." I've done this. The best I could do (in addition to aesthetically appreciate) was attempt to assemble them in time sequence, identifying individuals and attaching whatever family and historic story seems related. Actually, I could do a little better than that...I could create speculative history to tie images together (make them more "sticky" in the manner of historic novels.</p>

<p>I think family collections tell us more about the role of time in photography than do sequential frames or files. Those old images confirm for us that photography involves something like time travel. </p>

[Julie H]

<p>Good point, John, though I would still maintain that even pictures where you can barely remember/identify who or where it was will be dragging up bits and pieces of who/what/where it was connected to.</p>

<p>And, (for the sake of argument), there is also the stubborn insistence of the photograph to remain "stuck" to its time/<em>physical conditions</em> that extend beyond the frame, as well as its time/<em>historical conditions </em>that extend beyond the frame.</p>

<p>I am (as you know) a compositor. When I cut stuff from a picture to use in another, the gravitational angle of the body, the direction of the sun, indications of wind, rain, the emotional expressions apparent in face or body language to things within or outside of the frame, direction of the eyes, the bits of stuff that are obscured (feet drive me crazy) are all "sticky" to/from the original photo which was, in turn, sticky to the wider scene that was not included in the picture.</p>

<p>I can't put those cut out parts in any other picture that does not match <em>exactly</em> in gravitational angle, direction of the sun and so forth. Body english or expression has to be accounted for (given a reason; source or intent). If feet were covered in the original, they have to be covered in the new arrangement. You can't "wash out" the original environment; the photographic parts are <em>made out of</em> the time that they were <em>in</em>. They're not objects; they're pieces of a larger fabric.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>And, (for the sake of argument), there is also the stubborn insistence of the photograph to remain "stuck" to its time/<em>physical conditions</em> that extend beyond the frame, as well as its time/<em>historical conditions </em>that extend beyond the frame.<br /> <br /><br /> A photograph is <em>rooted </em>in time. Your card/image/time/exposure will always be inextricably "sticky" with the neighboring cards in the time deck.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Julie, when you write time/physical conditions, do you mean by it time being ( = ) the physical condition ? <br /> <br /> Because, yes, in a way it is correct to say that a photograph is stuck to time or rooted in time. But there's a nuance to be made : where does one draw the line to that what's captured in the moment, or the photograph as the result of capturing that moment, is no longer "stuck" to time extending beyond the frame ? I think it will always be stuck by physical conditions ( how those conditions, inside and outside the frame, where before and will be after the captured moment in ever decreasing and increasing sequences ) but not by time ( as a result of a physical condition ) which would change depending on the point of reference, making it not so much sticky but more fluid.</p>

<p>If two people would make a photograph at the very same moment ( right NOW ), they could both stubbornly insist that the moment they captured with the photograph was stuck to time, rooted in time. Which time would that be however ? One would be at night, while the other would be in full daylight if one of the 2 photographs happened to be made in another timezone at the other side of the world. Both photographs are stuck to different physical conditions, which makes up 2 different timezones, which, yes, are being experienced as only one time by both people. But the photographs themselfes however, the moments being captured, weren't made in such one timeconcept, independent from it's physical condition, so how could they be at all stuck to it ? Perhaps it's more 'correct' to say that the photographs are "stuck" by memory, which evokes time.</p>

<p>By the way, could both people tell what time it would be on the sun ?</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>I would still maintain that even pictures where you can barely remember/identify who or where it was will be dragging up bits and pieces of who/what/where it was connected to.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, connecting, identifying,... by memory. For me, music, known music or music heard for the very first time, is what triggers memory(s), feelings, evoking time, more so then photography does.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Phylo,</p>

<p>You are reminding me of Jorge Luis Borges, in <em>A New Refutation of Time</em>:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Hume denied the existence of an absolute space, in which each thing has its place; I deny the existence of one single time, in which all events are linked.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>But in the end, he came to this:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>And yet, and yet</em> . . . Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are apparent desperations and secret consolations. Our destiny is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad. Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Just to stir the pot, here is one more Borges quote, this one from <em>Kafka and his Precursors</em>:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>In the critic's vocabulary, the word "precursor" is indispensable, but it should be cleansed of all connotations of polemic or rivalry. The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>-Julie</p>

[sobeystudio]

<p>Julie-<br>

"In the critic's vocabulary, the word "precursor" is indispensable, but it should be cleansed of all connotations of polemic or rivalry. The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future." -Kafka?</p>

<p>I don't care who said it (wrote it)- brilliant! </p>

[sobeystudio]

<p>Julie-<br>

So when we are creating, we are only modifying from a pre-established knowledge. At what point do we become our own "precursor" and start creating from within?- although, of course, we can never escape history and its precursors. True freedom, as it has been said, is free of history.</p>