On Tiempo, Banff and Rome. And others

Time crystals! Wow, that is indeed fascinating. I should give it some thought.

Well, let’s say that here at the Banff Centre the breath taking environment leads one to consider the practice of drawing and mark making in a more holistic manner if that makes sense. One fascinating element is how the sky and the mountains merge (because of the clouds and the snow in the peaks).

 (Still from a video)

I have been tracking the weather (metaphorically speaking) and decided on three colors that seem to represent the place (very much like I was doing in the Slowtrack project but even more so in the pieces I was working on in Rome, where I tried to figure out the colors that represent the city, whether it is a vertical or horizontal place, and also what type of mark making would be adequate (turns out that I needed and interrupted line)).

So, as I was saying, I started making barely visible drawings and movies that wouldn't move. The form of mark making here is dictated by the trees, which dominate the landscape and make it distinct. 

I am now trying to come up with some measuring devices. Stay tuned!

A response to Time

Steph, I do find your comments very interesting and pertinent. As for time, in articular, I like to think of it as Michel Serres does: in meteorological terms.  In Spanish (as well as in French and other Romance languages) we use the same word, time, to refer to both chronological time and to meteorological one (what in English you call weather). This assumes that the nature of time is chaotic, multidimensional and topological rather than geometrical (as you suggest and Bergson pointed out, classical time is related to metrics, to its measurement, and has nothing to do with space). So I would say that there is indeed a sense of temporal depth in what I am trying to achieve while drawing. If such making allows for contemplative time in the viewer the better, although I wouldn’t know.

I would have to think about your second point … In my case, the importance of drawing has always lain in it being a gesture that allows for a certain form thinking to be manifested (that is, drawing as a gesture that gives an idea an aesthetic form). It is only recently that I have realized that drawing represents a very specific ‘occupation of time’.