Making Time: Considering Time as a Material

by Amy Cappellazzo, Adriano Pedrosa, Peter Wollen

As light is to painting, so is time to video. For centuries, time in art had been connected to the idea of permanence, and then, since the 60s, performance. But where is time now? In an age when global events are shared worldwide in real time, artists have responded by producing works that challenge our conventional notions of time by altering clocks, memory, constancy, documentation, movements, and actions. Time, after all, is a universal language, yet it is perhaps the least commonly understood. Making Time attempts to clarify that gap. Beginning with many influential single-channel video works from the 60s and early 70s, including Andy Warhol's Empire and Gilbert & George's Singing Sculpture, Making Time traces time-based work through the present, juxtaposing these experimental works against narrative works from the same period. Essays by Peter Wollen, Adriano Pedrosa, and Amy Cappellazzo look into the past and present of time as a material in video and film.

104 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2000