We are accustomed to perceive time as a constant value with a vectoral movement from the past to the future. But this is only one of many concepts of the structure of the Universe. In nature, in our feelings, even in history, as we know, strange contradictions often arise, which may lead us to suspect that time has a different nature and a different structure.

In his experimental research, the outstanding Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kozyrev developed a new concept — time density, which depended on processes taking place in nature. Kozyrev tried to prove that processes with a reduction of entropy (for example, apples blooming in orchards, warmth, light and so on) weaken the time density around them, or absorb time. On the contrary, processes accompanied by an increase in entropy (withering of matter, thunder, a loud noise and so on) increase time density, and accordingly radiate time. Thus, nature and humans themselves construct the passing of time by different phenomena, acts, emotions and creation.

In their project, Elena Gubanova and Ivan Govorkov have attempted to find a pictorial expression of Kozyrev’s experiments. Above a screen with drifting clouds, the artists have placed a round Soviet-era clock connected to the surface by light sensors. The video affects the movement of the minute hand: it slows down and speeds up depending on what is happening on the screen. The moving sky is a metaphor of society with its search for happiness and restlessness, and at the same time of nature with its tranquility and sudden cataclysms. The clock slows down when the light sensor detects a white cloud floating across the sky, a symbol of happiness: time is “swallowed up”. The clock speeds up, “radiating” time, when a space of entropy and stagnation appears on the screen in the form of fragments of a black sky.

*Photos: Mikhail Grigoriev, Anton Khlabov.
CYFEST-13, Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 2021.