Time and Motion (Vanishing and Becoming) Response
While you may not immediately think any work or art that you see is dealing with concepts of time and motion, the case can be made that every single work of art that has ever been made deals with both on different levels. As pointed out by the reading in the book, time and motion aren’t merely about how long something lasts or how something moves. Time and motion deal with the real and imaginary, implied and anticipated of each. Artworks that deal with time and motion aren’t exclusively video or performance (although these are the most obvious), in fact time and motion can be seen or felt in any two dimensional works as well.
The Vanishing and Becoming reading was particularly interesting to me in its argument that projections were the first form of art. I tend to agree, and had a great time tackling the idea that most art relies on a subject/object’s nature to be temporary. It is only by imitation by means of some sort of projection or image of it that the object or subject can live on. In a lot of ways, cinema/projections almost rebel against the notion that everything will eventually come to an end because of its pursuit to imitate reality and therefore preserve the idea/image of said reality, and in its imitation the “reality” of the object being imitated dies. Furthermore, therein lies the question of whether or not a projection of something is imitating reality or manipulating it to create something new. In either case, we either reach a vanishing point where the imitation automatically makes the “reality” vanish/disappear or we reach a becoming point where we take the “reality” of an object or subject and somehow manipulate its meaning or purpose to create a new one, or perhaps we get both. I think that both occur when the vanishing point and the becoming point have a witness (an audience) in which the witness can create meaning for themselves out of what they have just witnessed.
These concepts make my brain hurt to think about because they’re in the realm of circular reasoning in which you could think yourself in circles trying to come up with answers to any questions presented. I think it’s just one of life’s wonderfully complex concepts that just are. They make sense overall, but trying to pick them apart is like trying to find the end of the rainbow.
