(what if this is the) Last Time

 

This video is an archive of the performance that I gave. This is not the project itself but rather a Jim Campbell inspired memory machine to serve as an archive of the spectacle. This project is based on a mindfulness exercise that I find really helpful. This quote is essentially the thought process necessary to do the meditation that the audience participated in before they joined me and Kaya at the basketball court. "Walking is very calming. One step after another, one foot moving into the future and one in the past. Have you ever thought about this? It’s like our bodies are caught in the middle. The hard part is staying in the present. Really being here." Janet Cardiff. Jim Campbell, Tehching Hsieh, Michael Rush, Andrey Tarkovsky, and Caveh Zahedi were major points of reference when constructing ‘Project 2: Time.’ Zahedi and Tarkovsky influenced part A. in how I wanted to achieve sculpting time as fragments that are fleeting. I looked to Rush’s work to gain the repetition needed to have part A. connect to part B. transforming the impression of the mindfulness exercise as a scary overwhelming feeling into a stable form of recognizing time. Hsieh informed part B. with his work surrounding physical and mental endurance, the time it took to shoot 100 free throws while practicing the exercise was completely based on a truly accountable factor, the existential weight of duration. Part B. took about eight times longer than the video in part A. Hopefully it was able to convey the necessity to stay present through repetition. Part BRIDGE. was a guided walk of the last meditation that I made for the intention to be listened to by the audience that wanted to participate in the performance. I just don't think it would be particularly useful to include in this archive because it was intended for a purely circumstantial purpose to connect part A. and part B. to understand what the mindfulness practice truly is. This is a memory machine of the performance, part BRIDGE. will or will not be remembered, videos function as imperfect memory artifacts, since there was no video of the audience doing the exercise. It is their biological memories that are the input for this part of the machine. Hopefully this memory machine allows you, the viewer, to see time and fragments of fragility that can both be scary because of the nature of fleeting fragility while also recognizing the present as beautiful due to the fact it is vulnerable. When you move through the world with this lens there is no right or wrong way to see things, recognize the thoughts you have in order to see their value and then move past on to the next (whatever it may be!) be conscious of the fact that you are “really being here.” Project 2: Time