Passing Landscapes Lasting Sights

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Each work of art can be understood as a time-based work, if we consider it a record of the time it took to make it. This is very much exemplified in a simple line drawn on paper, where the starting point represents the starting time and the end point represents the end time. A painting is equally composed of different strokes and layers made in time. Photography and film, as well as video, further exemplified the fascination with time: now the time of the artwork could be manipulated and edited.

a

Various time keeping devices developed through centuries show the quest to master time by measuring it. In the end, without a time-keeping device that allows for a regular repetitive recording and playback of film frames, no film would not be possible. Each film or video work thus contains something of the century old quest. Simultaneously measuring and recording devices become a memento mori, reminding us of that while time can be measured, it can never be stopped – our death is imminent.

a

Bares’ and Shin’s are both concerned with the passing of time and use sequences of images to record landscapes and sights that appear in front of their eyes. The mechanistic, time-keeping function of the camera allows for a sampling from the continuous stream of appearances that, once viewed in the gallery, make us aware of the relationships between our individual sensory experience and the universal unstoppable flow of events.