Material Performance

This series of talks focuses on materiality and time—how material and passing time can be seen as reciprocal conditions for each other’s qualities. It is inspired by the thoughts of French philosopher Henri Bergson:

“If I want to mix a glass of sugar and water, I must… wait until the sugar melts. This little fact is big with meaning. For here the time I have to wait is not the mathematical time, which would apply equally well to the entire history of the material world…. It coincides with my impatience, that is to say, with a certain portion of my own duration…. It is no longer something thought, it is something lived.”

Bergson’s text has punctuated philosophical discussions since it first appeared in 1908. The series will bring together material scientists, biochemists, architects, philosophers, curators, and media theorists to unravel the relationship of time and materiality within each discipline.