The theme of The Indivisible Present is time – slowed down, sped up and frozen. In the case of the first exhibit – a mesmerising film of 30 million year old insects trapped in amber – it seemed to include time travel, but this was only because I hadn't read the notes and thought that it looked a bit like the opening sequence from a new Dr Who adventure.
'I Really Must Congratulate You on Your Attention to Detail' by Viola Yesiltaç also picks up the idea of frozen time in a series of clean, simple prints of paper sculptures photographed in the moments before they fall over.
Other exhibits include Yoko One's 1966 film Eyeblink, which has echoes of some of Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, currently showing at The Ashmolean, and John Latham's work around burnt or damaged books in which he challenges our assumptions about the permanency of Western knowledge.
My favourite piece of 'slow art' was 24 Hour Psycho – Hitchcock's legendary film slowed down so to give it a running time of 24 hours. Here, you find yourself in a dark, silent and largely empty room watching what has become a series of black and white stills. The effect is to heighten your sensitivity to what's on screen – faces, fashion, cars – as well as to the silence and, slightly disturbingly, creaking floors as people move in and out of the exhibit.
There's a lot of food for thought in The Indivisible Present and enough variety to ensure that something grabs your attention.
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