Senses of Time: Video and Film-Based Works of Africa
Hammer Building, Level 3
Los Angeles County Museum Of Art
(LACMA)
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| Video and Film-Based Works of Africa |
When I entered this exhibit in the Hammer Building at LACMA, I felt strange by the fact that the exhibit room was too different from what I expected; the room was quite noisy with all the videos and films on, and also the room was very dark with all different colors of light coming from all those videos.
I was just too confused by the concept, I approached the staff, and asked. He explained to me that in this exhibit, there are videos and films created by five leading African artists, who examined how time is experienced and made by our human bodies. The staff also added that time can be measured but it is quite challenging to understand; I totally felt the same way as I walked around this exhibit.
Walking around after looking into some of the works, I asked the other staff there, "what is time based art?" She said that time based art repeat, resist, and reverse our expectation that time should move always forward. Especially, three-channel video projection by Bernie Searle was quite interesting. Here, genealogical time was addressed with ancestral family portraits, being tossed by the winds and waves of generational loss. It was quite surprising and shocking that people could come up with this kind of idea.
About to forget
Bernie Searle 2005
Three-channel video projection
Furthermore, this video projection was also amazing because three different channels were on simultaneously; this really shows how art, science, and technology can be combined, delivering very abstract and challenging concept. After this exhibit, I looked into the definition and concept of "time perception." Time perception is known to be a field of study within psychology
and neuroscience that refers to the subjective experience of life: time, which
is measured by someone’s own perception of the duration of the indefinite and
continuous unfolding of events. In addition, many studies have already shown that everyone perceives time very differently.
Brave New World II By Theo Eshetu 1999
Multi-media and video installation
Even though this exhibit itself was quite challenging to understand, this exhibit definitely opened my eyes into time perception, making me think about this abstract concept. Furthermore, this is video and film-based art, and therefore, to feel these works, I strongly recommend to visit this exhibit in person. I really enjoyed and this exhibit clearly showed how science and technology can work together with art, conveying very challenging concept.
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