To Measure Time.

Abstract

The dissertation inquires into the spatio-temporal parameters of Time Clock Piece (1980–81), the second One Year Performance of Taiwanese-American artist Tehching Hsieh. In the one-year-long piece, the artist interacts with an industrial time clock every hour by punching a time card and then recording a film still. To what extent do time measurement practices affect societal life, values, and our sense of orientation? The analysis focuses on performative, relational, and processual aspects, discussing the piece together with other artworks that trace time and illustrate temporal progression. Drawing from a philosophy of difference and becoming, and critical feminist posthuman theory, the thesis understands the act of measuring time as an operation of translation and transformation. In a close reading of Time Clock Piece through theories and artworks that share similar approaches, the research detects strategies of recording time that initiate idiosyncratic temporal realities. The thesis demonstrates the transformative potential of the works and their capacity to generate alternate temporalities through experimenting with measuring techniques.

Short biography

Sabine Priglinger (*1984, Schwarzach im Pongau) studied stage and costume design at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin. After her diploma thesis on Anton Chekhov's Ivanov in 2009, she worked in film, theater, and performance. In 2012, she began her research on Tehching Hsieh's Time Clock Piece (1980–81), tracing conceptions of time measurement in performance studies, art theory, and philosophy. In 2014, she was a recipient of the Marietta Blau Grant and spent a six-month research period in London at the University of Roehampton and the Live Art Development Agency (LADA). She helped establish the Cathrin Pichler Archive for Arts and Sciences (CPA) at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2013–17) and has worked in exhibition management at Kunsthalle Exnergasse, WUK, since 2017.