If time is not of the essence

(2010) HD video with sound, 7:59 min.

At first it looks like nothing happens. Then you realize something has changed. Or has it?

This is what bugs me in life. Everything changes constantly, but I don’t see it. Then one day I wake up and realize my life has changed massively. I try to get a grip, but I can’t.

For ‘If time is not of the essence’ I filmed a forrest, not far from the place where I grew up. I cut the film in equal parts and messed them up. They were reversed, delayed, mixed up, disrupted. I did the same thing with a piece of piano-music, it got reversed, delayed, the key was changed several times, it was cut up, mixed up, disrupted. Then, like a jigsaw puzzle, I put al the pieces together to form a new film, a new piece of music, a new work, a new reality.

When I returned to the place several weeks later, I found that most of the trees had been chopped down.

Das Alte stürzt, es ändert sich die Zeit,
Und neues Leben blüht aus den Ruinen.

Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), Wilhelm Tell (1804).

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