An Act of Timing

Fort York Historical Society, Toronto, ON
Latex paint on wall, wood, speakers and sound
2014

An Act of Timing transforms Woodrow Wilson’s 1918 Fourteen Points speech to congress into a large non-repeating geometric wall pattern. The pattern, generated by a surface subdivision algorithm, creates not only a direct relationship of shape to letter, but of the entire text to the spatial dimensions of the tunnel. This pattern serves as a backdrop to a dialogue between two players, engaged in a card game, their voices split between the two speakers. As a common activity to pass the time, the card game is also inspired by its use as a strategy to outwit the Devil in the Russian folktale The Runaway Soldier and the Devil. These seemingly disparate threads in the work, the moral justification for war and its advice for a just and lasting peace contained in the Wilson speech combined with a card game that references the recurring motif of conflict found in many folktales are brought together in the tunnel, a literal and metaphorical shortcut separating vast distances, either spatial, temporal or cultural. The effect is not to unite but to heighten the differences that continue to generate movement in history such as the ancient vs. modern, ruler vs. subject, and design vs. chance.