TIME &
OTHER SYSTEMS
"When play is scheduled, it is no longer fun..."
- Véronique Côté
"Middle-class children in America are so overscheduled that they
have almost no 'nothing time.'"
- Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D, Wright Institute
This week-long performance, in collaboration with network performance artist Chris Barr, investigates the systemization and socialization of time and its implications in early childhood.
Using a children's book simply titled "Time" as a script, the artists lived in Big Orbit gallery and hour-by-hour recreated the activities illustrated in the book. A computer voice marked the change of schedule as the artist perform the tasks: "7 o’clock time to get up, 8 o’clock time to eat your oatmeal…”
The performance looked closely at the cultural molding required by a productive and efficient society, where a packed schedule becomes a status symbol and leisure becomes another victim to the gridded day.