This has been a week of waiting, of urging the clock on, which has prompted thoughts about time and ritual. This partly to do with a) a recent commission and b) my book - an announcement is happening very soon, I promise. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about it in relation to durational art. I’ve written a little before about Tehching Hsieh and about Amanda Coogan, whose practices differ hugely, but their sense of commitment overlaps. Hsieh’s project of punching a time clock every hour of every day for a year was not just about the physicality of the act, but about blurring the edges of capitalist/work time and the passing of so-called unproductive time. One view of durational art is the necessity of endurance, which implies longevity, grit and perseverance. Contained within that endurance is ritual and repetition, and in some cases pain, but mostly it is about commitment.
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