SHEDDING TIME is an 18 day performance done in September and October 2010 in the Baden Württembergischen Kunstverein in Stuttgart, Germany. Performance: Ivan Civic. Duration 18 days. 7 hours a day from September 28th to October 21st, 2010. Curator: Jean-Baptiste Joly and Nadine Jäger. Unterstützt von Akademie Schloss Solitude und BWKW. Costume by Tobias Bodio. Video by Sienna Horton. This video is not supposed to have any sound.
More about the performance: "SHEDDING TIME", by Ivan Civic
http://ivancivic.wordpress.com/category/shedding-time-performance/
The artist is inside an installation where time shifts into a state of secondary importance. Everything we do is limited by time. This performance is limited by it as well but it does have a structure that eludes the importance of time as a dictator of our existences. It rather plays in time's face and stretches an action doable in half an hour into a physical rhythmic tour de force of one entire month.
In fact, the artist is performing the piece every day from September 28th 2010 till October 21st 2010. The performance takes place from Tuesday till Sunday, from seven to nine hours a day without breaks and interruptions.
The physical endurance and focused concentration stamina necessary to execute this performance have to be on high levels in order to endure in an action aimed towards breaking the frenetic consumption we undergo when put into a situation where we must react to an unnatural motion and discipline that apparently have nothing to do with our lives and our natural needs.
Standing between two rocks, with a hammer in one hand, the action is aimed towards a looped enactment of "ticking", like a human clock that tries to reinvent the rhythm of time, but continuously fails as the entire performance is limited in time itself. The real action here is the fact that the artist knows the limitations his actions bring and yet he moves on despite the paradox and despite the fact that time will win against him yet again.
This performance is about acknowledging our limits within time and taking on a Sisyphus activity despite all the odds. The discipline and willpower are key elements a human being can bring into a match dealt with and against time. And again, to time itself these elements do not mean anything but they do mean something to other human beings. They are comforting and give a pleasant illusion that we indeed are capable of winning against the "ticking enemy".
In fact, the moment we acknowledge this and feel comforted just for a micro second, we immediately move on and notice the bitter sweet situation we are in and that this entire action you are witnessing before your eyes is, indeed, purely futile and that it will not change any facts. It will not change or stop time. It will not make us happier nor will it free us from any pain, restrictions or misery.
It might, however, make us feel safe for maybe just a second... and in that stolen second we will float inside a virtual lifetime and we might feel comforted that all will be fine.
And before you know it, all this will be over and done and nothing will stay behind except for maybe a thin line, like a shed snake skin, inside a complex memory pattern every human being carries inside themselves. And even this thin memory line will fade, devoured by time's insatiable hunger.
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Ivan Civic - Want it, get it, fake it! Explanationby IVANCIVICcom571 views
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