Today is our wedding anniversary and love is in the air! In honor of the day we thought we’d share some projects that—like this partnership—are in it for the LONG haul. The only project Luke and I have that is ongoing (besides Rabble & Twine, the biggest project of them all) are photo books of all the notable moments and memories we make for our anniversary each year. I gave one to Luke on our first anniversary, and it’s a tradition we’ve decided to keep upFamily yearbooks are a trendy thing, and I know I’m not inventing this idea. There are no new ideas under the sun.. I love looking back and realizing how much we’ve done, places we’ve traveled; seeing just how many singular moments make up a full year. I think it’s great the photos get to live outside our phones and computers. Digital records are fine, but what can I say? I’m old school like that. I like to imagine looking back when we’re old, gray, and squinting to make out the photographs.
As we finished up our book for this year (solid year, btw) it got me thinking about creative projects/art pieces that play or played the long game. I’m talking more than just a selfie every day for a year. I bet people are doing that unintentionally in our culture nowadays. Although, JK Keller has been doing it for 16 years and plans to do it until the day he steps on a rainbow. Impressive, right?Check out Keller’s long list of related photo projects to delve further
*snaps fingers* Hey! Over here!
We live in such an instant gratification world these days. Audiences don’t always want to invest/dedicate the time for art. You wouldn’t believe how often this topic comes up in our interviews and conversations with other artists. Getting an audience to sit still and listen/observe/be present in the artistic experience is a common thread of struggle. People read the headlines not the articles. More and more when I go to shows or museums I see people with their phones out, taking pictures and filtering the experience through the small screen in their hands. I love documentation as much as the next girl but there’s a time, a limit, and a place. At one of the last shows we went to we stood next to a dude who spent most of the show writing an email on his blackberry (yeah…a blackberry). Once you pull that phone out it’s a slippery slope. All of a sudden you’re scrolling your newsfeed, checking your e-mail, and reading this post on R&TIf you are at an artistic event or someplace else that requires your attention, please stop reading and be present where you are. We’ll be here for ya later..
Art to the rescue!
Of course, we’re not the only one to notice this phenomena, and there are plenty of examples of artists who have played the long game. I appreciate the reminder to slow down, not just as an audience member, but in all aspects of life. This is where art as a medium of understanding the world really shines.
Here are some of our favorite examples
…of ART ON A LONG TIME SCALE [insert your own echo]. Honestly, I can’t imagine tackling this substantial of an artistic undertaking.
Nicolas Nixon - Forty Portraits in Forty Years
Starting in 1975 photographer Nicolas Nixon took a family portrait of the Brown Sister's (his wife and her three sisters) each year for 40 years.
Tehching Hsieh - One Year Performance
In the late 70's and early 80's artist Tehching Hsieh performed several One Year Performances. Projects that—you guessed it—lasted exactly one year. One year spent outside, one year spent punching a time clock every hour on the hour, one year spent tied to another person by an 8 foot rope, always in the same room but never touching.
Ulay and Marina Abramovic - The Lovers / The Great Wall Walk
In 1988 performance artists Ulay and Marina Abramovic walked the length of The Great Wall of China from opposite ends to meet in the middle and give each other one last embrace goodbye to signify the end of their 12 year relationship. The walk took 90 days.
They did not meet again until Abramovic's 2010 installation The Artist is Present at the MoMA in NY. If you haven't seen the footage of them meeting again it's truly a beautiful moment.
The Norman Conquest - Mantra In A
Recording engineer (and musician, etc.) The Norman Conquest is a friend of ours with an ambitious undertaking - to record an A (the musical note, not the vowel) every day for the rest of his life. He's also added the practice of taking a picture of exit signs every day, as a reminder of our mortality and the transience of life.
John Cage - Organ²/ASLSP (As Slow As Possible)
John Cage - Organ²/ASLSP (As Slow As Possible) is a piece composed by John Cage. A church in Halberstadt, Germany is currently performing the piece. They started in 2001 (although there was a silent rest until 2003) and it is scheduled to finish in the year 2640. That's 639 years! Wowza!
Longnow Foundation - The 10,000 Clock
Photo: 10,000 Clock Prototype 1. Lead Designer: Danny Hills. Photographer: Rolfe Horn."Why would anyone build a Clock inside a mountain with the hope that it will ring for 10,000 years? Part of the answer: just so people will ask this question, and having asked it, prompt themselves to conjure with notions of generations and millennia."
The Longnow Foundation (named by Brian Eno) has a number of projects that encourage people to think about longer time spans, and by extension the legacy we leave in this world. The 10,000 year clock is an ingenious (and literally monumental engineering undertaking to design a clock built to last 10,000 years — longer than Stonehenge.