top of page

Wasting time

In his book The Society of the Spectacle, Debord portrays various aspects of contemporary society, including the relationship between industry and consumption. The author points out that the use of time is transformed by industry and that all consumable time in modern society is treated as raw material for new diversified products. 

 

This manipulation of time based on trade generates the constant acceleration in which contemporary society has become accustomed to living, the consumption time is very short in relation to the processing time; For this reason, the duration of production must be reduced to meet the needs of the system. A concrete example of this acceleration is the textile and clothing industry in which consumption is mediated by changing trends that require rapid manufacturing. 

              

Today's society is so wrapped up in this constant acceleration that these processes seem to go unnoticed. This is why slow actions or those that go against this accelerated rhythm acquire an almost utopian meaning by working in opposition to said speed. 

 

Reacting to this accelerated system, I wanted to carry out a contrary action, which, although it fulfills a certain purpose, is  slow and deliberate and only for these qualities it seems to be a meaningless action. However, your fin  is precisely in the extended processing time. This is why I propose this action as a form of resistance, a movement that does not respond to the speed of its environment. 


Losing time's resistance is created from a slow and gradual action. I collected leaves from trees that were dead on the ground, in turn, I was sewing one leaf with another by hand trying to form a whole that, being united, can refer to what is absent. During the task of sewing each leaf  I had to be very aware of each moment, since this work requires great attention, due to its still life condition, dry leaves become even more fragile and fracture easily. All this demands a gradual and careful movement, in which the attention must be completely focused on the action. The real meaning of this work is not found in its visible details; its thousands of stitches, all the collected leaves, their colors and their different textures. The meaning is in the invisible; in the time of elaboration of this installation, months dedicated to a slow work in the midst of a fast environment. Wasting time.

bottom of page