Understanding of time depends on what is valued in time. Capitalism sustains itself on ideas of the future and the perpetual movement forward. Looking through the lens of progress, the future is a continuation of the stable reality with the deep assumption that things will get better, “whether that be better technology, better politics, better inclusion, or better lives”[1]. Yet the question arises, better to whom? Moving to a “better future” keeps paving the way to ecological destruction, assuring that the future is even more exploitable. Slow environmental degradation occurs gradually and is out of sight. Yet again, out of sight to whom?

This edition of the Sonic Act Biennial in Amsterdam takes us on a journey between different temporalities. While the dominant order depends on fantasies of the future, the exhibition One Sun After Another at W193, Zone2Source, and Het HEM frames time from different standpoints. The storytellers embody a variety of guises, stretching time in ways that are non-linear, speeding up and slowing down the time frames. They are filling gaps in our perception of time with the nonhuman ways of witnessing time while manoeuvring between feelings of nostalgia, hope, and apprehension.

Our current relationship with the nonhuman world and environments is often represented through the lens of trauma. Although in our conventional understanding of time, one thing leads to another, geo-trauma has a peculiar relation to time. Rather than being traced back to a single event, it is represented by the gradual accumulation and complicated by the phenomenon of delay. The cause of the geo-trauma is usually difficult to locate, as the temporal gap between actions and repercussions makes consequences of violence gradually untied from its causes [2]. And when we move forward away from the past, it appears as a ghost demanding accountability for past actions and is not willing to disappear[3]. And so trauma spans generations.

So how can we make sense of the long-form disasters and delayed repercussions of our actions? Where do we look for the evidence? Some of them have no visual status. Since the gradual deterioration of the environment is beyond human-scale sensorium, artistic works invite us to use and retrain our senses. Toxins, for instance, are just substances until they interact with something that is eventually being harmed. Thousands of synthetic chemicals are present beyond the point of our perception. And the duration of exposure to the toxins makes them even more imperceptible.

Certain chemicals and toxins have strong odours that warn us about the danger. Although gas, which has a very distinctive smell, was odourless less than a hundred years ago^[4]. The artificial scent added to the gas was supposed to alert us and prevent us from getting used to it. And yet we are gradually getting used to artificial odours that keep penetrating our spaces. With the introduction of fresh-smelling cleaning products, the scent of cleanness has become a standard.

Η συνέχεια εδώ.