The Past is the Present, It's the Future Too: The Temporal Turn in Contemporary Art

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Bloomsbury Publishing USA, Jun 28, 2012 - Art - 348 pages
The term ‘temporality' often refers to the traditional mode of the way time is: a linear procession of past, present and future. As philosophers will note, this is not always the case. Christine Ross builds on current philosophical and theoretical examinations of time and applies them to the field of contemporary art: films, video installations, sculpture and performance works.

Ross first provides an interdisciplinary overview of contemporary studies on time, focusing on findings in philosophy, psychology, sociology, communications, history, postcolonial studies, and ecology. She then illustrates how contemporary artistic practices play around with what we consider linear time. Engaging the work of artists such as Guido van der Werve, Melik Ohanian, Harun Farocki, and Stan Douglas, allows investigation though the art, as opposed to having art taking an ancillary role. The Past is the Present; It's the Future Too forces the reader to understand the complexities of the significance of temporal development in new artistic practices.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
Temporal Investigations in Contemporary Art Social Sciences and the Humanities A Comparative View ...
18
Ecology
53
Potentiality
111
Ruination Gone Wrong
166
Simultaneity I
211
Simultaneity II
259
The Historical Sublime or Longue Durée Revisited
279
Notes
306
Index
333
Copyright

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About the author (2012)

Christine Ross is Professor and James McGill Chair in Contemporary Art History in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University, Canada.

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