We Are the Time Machines: Time and Tools for Commoning was a project that Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons did in 2015-16, but which we recently discovered through their documentation. Casco Art Institute in Utrecht, is an experimental platform where art invites a social vision. Art and the commons are two key practices, which serve as tools and models for non-capitalistic ways of living together.
The project We Are the Time Machines: Time and Tools for Commoning was an exhibition and studio program that sought to rethink the exhibition format as a way of ‘giving space’ and ‘dedicating time’ to both alliances and conflicts, whether with peers or the general public.
What attract our attention is that this afterthought of the exhibition format included the creation of time, especially “reproductive” time, for things like study and conversation, which we consider a fundamental condition for commoning. Thus, the exhibition ran for five months, punctuated by various moments of study organized by Casco and its communities. The exhibition not only presented “tools” but also included rooms for various types of activities, meetings and installations. The idea was to accommodate open processes of creating that time that revolves around the embrace of different rhythms of living together.
As Binna Choi (director of the centre at the time) says in a text that reflects on the relation between Curating, Time, and the Commons.
How is it so that an exhibition becomes a way of dedicating time? Isn’t it typical of an exhibition to at best freeze time or frame time for those who come to see the exhibition, while taking away time from those who make it along with all the frenzies in organizing and materializing the concept? Then who dedicates time? Is it about the viewership? Whose time is it talking about?”.
It was a shame to “miss” the experience, but they have documentation of some of the events that took place. For example, the performance that kicked off the project, entitled “A Score for Sharing Negativity” by Mattin. And in the link of the text we recommend before, there are pictures of other activities that took place such as Office for Unlearning Business, Conversation Card – Read, Talk, and Write. The latter brought together friends, colleagues, neighbors, or strangers to form occasional, temporary, or regular study groups, or just to talk. You can also access the audios of the forums they organized (WTM forums) at this link.
Photo: WTM room 2, Office for Unlearning (Un)usual Business/Busyness, a workshop session as part of WTM Forum II, Commoning Art Organization, 30 January 2016.