As a description, “time-based art” has always struck me as a bit off. But not so much because its baggy scope enables a sometimes arbitrary and lazy lacing together of dizzyingly disparate works across media. In fact, this ruled but unruly interdisciplinarity seems mostly a virtue, the whole point: to think through dance, film, visual art, music, theater and performance adjacently and synchronically.
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For me, one of the places where this kind of practice emerged is the series of concerts that La Monte Young organized at Yoko Ono’s loft in 1960-1961. It included work by composers and musicians (Henry Flynt, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Richard Maxfield and others), with experimental dance (Simone Forti), poetry and theater (Jackson MacLow), and a sculptural installation (Robert Morris).
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Time based art is when the artist has the control of a certain choreography of a sequence of images and/or live events and determines how the audience is encountering it. It usually also involves a number of media and is rather organized cross-media or inter-media.
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The Greek language refers to choreography as “dance writing” from the words χορεία (circular dance) and γραφή (writing). I have come to understand that choreographers practice the art of designing movements, in some specified form, through time.
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I have been using the concept expanded event for some years as a way to refer to time-based art. With this concept I have referred to those works, mostly shown in exhibitions, which experiment with some kind of change during the time they stay on view to the public.
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To me, time-based art could be anything that is art and takes time. Time-based art could include video, film, performance, net art, etc. These are a diverse array of practices and I’m not sure that they have anything particularly meaningful in common.
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Like so many others who attended SITUATED on Monday, I returned to the mayhem of other responsibilities, but I found myself returning again and again to the ideas shared and questions explored. Here are some of my reflections, and I would love to hear what is preoccupying you.
Expanded Art Inside Artistic Silos or “How many people can you make love you” (Theaster Gates): So this is an ARC theme, and we found it again in the world of socially-engaged art. While so many of us make or support engaged work that “crosses” art forms, we are situated in different art worlds that define that crossing. Who reviews? Who commissions? Who grants? Who collects? (And do you aspire to be collectible?)
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