Invalid Time／Space

Time proved its existence through nature, and human behaviors construct inertia by following the natural laws. Artists peel off our senses toward time and space, chiseling leaks and make us re-evaluate our relationships with time/space in the invalid time/space. “Mathematics represents a world eviscerated of time and phenomenal particularity. It is a visionary exploration of a simulacrum of the world, from which both time and phenomenal distinction have been sucked out. Our causal explanations are steeped in time: the cause precedes the effect. If time were illusory, so would any causal nexus be an illusion. On the other hand, however, if time were real and inclusive to the point of resulting in the mutability of the laws of nature, our causal judgements would lack a stable warrant. Our conventional ideas about causation are confused; they assume that time is real, but not too real.”

In “The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time” by Roberto M. Unger and Lee Smolin, they argued the inevitable entanglement between time and causal relationships. Time includes everything while rubbing away all existences. Yet, it also crushes the homogeneous world without phenomenal distinction cleared out by the mathematical rationality. Such an adorable but troubling character seems to overlap with some dimensions of art. Art always provokes customs and systems of different societies, and the time, causal relationships and regularities of the bodies as well. The exhibition venue is both a chronological treasure box full of stories, and an imaginary space for participants to temporarily abandon any seen or unseen limitations. The artwork operates as a tool of escape, with artists as magicians hiding in the dark, making time/space invalid and opens up a brand new sensual experience even though it may just be a moment.

Chang Nai-Jen creates a drumming device from the image of Shaman drums. Shaman drums is used by the Shamans as a tool of communicating with another world. After the artist changes the device into a kinetic, it also becomes an unmanned ceremony. Tsai Yi-Ting installation the magnetic long running belt to make the screw nut continuously rotate. During the process, the unconventional frictions, waste and tensions lead us to the unpredictable end, as a metaphor of the relationship of every individual and the world one lives in. Patroling through the ventilation system that are invisible to eyes yet effective to senses of bodies, Kou Tak-Leong utilizes strings and laser lights to turn the faint airflow changes visible. The strings also spontaneously change and develop their patterns in an unpredictable way due to the duration of time, the control of ventilation in the natural or artificial way. Lights and shadows are how we measure distances, yet when one enters Lin Shu-Yu’s artwork spaces, the measuring standards start to loose. The swaying of lights shakes the shadows of bodies. The relative positions between bodies and artworks alter spontaneously. Here we are not the dominant one who can control the distance of time.