Time: a response to new works for SLOWTRACK

In response to Laura's last post I've been thinking about two particular points, both related to time. Firstly the fragmentation and spatialisation of time that, for Fredric Jameson, defined the present in postmodernism. It's sneaked onto my radar recently, in several guises but mainly in relation to the aspect of critical thinking that returns to history to quietly check up on the things presented to us. Even if this is a spatial sense of history as a map, in order to reflect on our position in relation to larger conceptual structures. In my defence I'm an illustrator and that's how I process things!

But that's another avenue entirely*, when what I'm wondering in relation to these drawings is whether (in your shift from small to enormous drawings) the sheer scale of the things offers the possibility of adding depth of time (more Bergsonian, maybe?) to a spatial form. Is drawing a way of redeeming spatial time in that respect? Developing it into something productive, in that it gives us viewers a pocket of contemplative time?

*But one that might help to explain my preoccupation with pauses in this post!

The other point that sprang to mind was the sheer brilliance of drawing as some sort of lingua franca (or perhaps it's time as a Rosetta Stone of a concept) for us practitioner-researchers. To explain; I've been to more interdisciplinary conferences in the past year, and the role of the discourse familiar to different disciplines in defining (and potentially excluding) membership has become more apparent. I mention this not as someone in some sort of academic sulk, but in terms of its potential to limit research. We discussed the problem of talking at cross purposes without really being sure of what we'd agreed upon, if we discussed concepts without reference to specific examples to develop our shared understanding. It was the self-made trap in my SAR conference paper! But time has been something that has enabled us to talk about drawing across disciplines. And in turn drawing has enabled us to see each other's perspective on time, even if we can't always articulate its complexity in words. 

At any rate, these thoughts are clumsy and still drying, and are very much open to reworking! Over to you, Laura and Lynn, if there's something in here to pursue or take in a different direction entirely.