“Relativity stems from man’s reluctance to recognize that sense of time is like a sense of a color, it is for of perception, just as there is no such thing as colour without an eye to discern it, so there an instant or an hour or a day without an event to mark it.” Einstein
Waiting on the bus stop.
At the food market.
In my bed.
In my studio.
At the doctors waiting room.
In a church.
In a garden while discreetly observing the people around me.
By the river coast.
On the way to another city.
While waiting on a long queue.
Waiting on a friend, in a crowded square.
Gazing at the sun.
Just need to concentrate.
An evening, with a glass of wine in a pub.
On the carpet of my room.
In a bench at a park.
In a church’s garden.
At the sea side.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Time.
Creating. Realizing time.
Stitching.
Labour or creativity?
Obsession or realization?
Realizing Unconscious time.
The Untitled Time consist of 900 drawings with gold-black thread on silk paper and a notebook.
Displayed in the exhibition 3 Weeks / 3 Subjects: young perspectives on contemporary art at Margareten (‘Der Hundsturm bellt!’), Volks-theater, Margareten, Vienna, Austria.
Vasiliki Sifostratoudaki, 2011
///////// Curatorial Essay by Kyveli Lignou – Tsamantani, Art Historian
“Culture: The reflection and prefiguration of the possibilities of organization of everyday life in a
given historical moment.” G.Debord, 1957
“Untitled time” is a “spatial-timing map” of a personal individual tour in a metropolis. In this map the private route is recorded through a traditional feminine practice: stitching. These three works (the installation, the notebook and the drawings) resulted from the artist’s need to understand the sense of “waiting time”. At the end what becomes more significant (for the craftsman-artist) is the understanding of the dimension of time. Stitching was partly a way to count and comprehend time and partly a way to remember places, things and routes.
This work of art is an experiential perception of time in which the space is defined by the time. This “spatial-timing map” of an urban landscape it was structured progressively through the artist’s/ stroller’s wandering, who acted like a new Charles Baudelaire’s flâneur. Another correlation for this installation could be found on the Situationist International and their practices: dérive and psychogeography. Dérive is a rapid passage through varied ambiances, which refers to a subversive behavior linked to the conditions of urban society. Psychogeography can be understood as an extension of derive, as it is the study of the specific effects of the geographical environment (whether consciously organized or not) on the emotions and behavior of individuals.
“Untitled time” in its material essence is a craft procedure in which stitching is substituted for writing and needle for pencil. The fact that Sifostratoudaki decides to use silk paper that is very delicate is of utmost importance. Stitches can be seen like off-handedly sketches and notes in notebooks and they exist as “traces” of a personal and specific “time and space” creation.
The creative procedure has got two stages. On the one hand during the creative production, Sifostratoudaki imposed specific rules on herself through which she was able to perceive the limits of the procedure, as well as the meaning of working within time limits. On the other hand by this procedure/practice the artist aimed at the perception of the dimension of time. Time was experienced differently, perhaps a bit more slowly in relation to the industrial/massive/consumer speed of the contemporary metropolis. She counted time while she was marking it on her silk papers, which is a common practice for her. As a result of this stitching, after some time she was able to recall events and places, which had constituted the context in which she had produced the silk papers. Following that was a compilation of a list of those places. Through her work she identified herself with her everyday life via an experiential wandering around the city.