August 1 2023
The Watermill Center, New York
Site-specific performance and installation
Co-performer: Yunseo Choi
Technician: Johan O. R. Sterner, Katimari Niskala
Walkie-talkie voice: Christopher Knowles
60'
I was fascinated by the history of the Watermill Center—the former laboratory of Western Union used to develop telecommunication technologies, radio and telegraphy. A specific light score was developed for the warning of a potential bomb during the war.
Before time has become an objective matter, people looked up at the sun to set the clock; and time varies between cities. The navy observed the sun on the open sea and reported time through telegraph; then a telegrapher would spread the message in morse code throughout the States. The knee building at the Watermill Center used to be a radio tower, since the higher altitude is easier for transmitting signals in longer distances.
In the performance, the message of time is conveyed through flickers in morse code from the rooftop, created through heliograph, a piece of mirror used to reflect sunlight. The gesture of uttering the message takes time and therefore would inevitably fall out of time. A swing between the trees in front of the building receives the message and dissolves the dictating rhythm naturally. The audience is wandering back and forth inbetween, the spatial articulation of temporal delays. Yet sunset is the natural cue for transforming the implied meanings of the identical gesture.
This piece explores the artificiality of time as the representation of passing moments, as well as its impossibility. It tried to find a form of telepathy The piece was inspired by Christopher Knowles’ poems.
Emily likes the TV,
because she watches the TV,
because she likes it.
Christopher Knowles
