Furtive Temporalities in the Contemporary Visual Image: The Case Studies of Stan Douglas, Doug Aitken and Mark Lewis

Abstract

A large part of the recent artistic production is focuses on audiovisual works of art in which the idea of ​​time and space-time interpretations induce the spectator's reflection. These artwork installations use the strategy of slowing down, speed, interruption or spatializing the rhythm and the sequence of the image in movement and question the perception of the spectator's everyday temporality and affect their visual experience. We explore the hegemonic chronologies through the artists and their production and reproduction of moving images that corresponds to the emergence of a range of critical and methodological proposals or model analysis of images that introduce multiple temporal levels. Such temporal multiplicity acquires an essential role in the global contemporary art scene, where different timelines from various contexts of the globe converge antagonistically in what we call “the modern world”. Therefore, any attempt to write about this artwork needs to rethink the concept of time and assess both the temporal multiplicity (heterochrony) and investment of time and history (anachronism). This paper attempts to analyze the temporality, the collective imagination, history and memory, and moving image and its manipulation as a conceptual resource in the work of Stan Douglas, Doug Aitken and Mark Lewis.