Alison Ballard & Martin Lewis

An Hour

November 2020

An Hour was an online performance commissioned to mark the launch of the Institute of Advanced Studies' 2020/21 Time Programme. It consisted of performers attempting to count time, accurately, for an hour. They counted the seconds silently, saying only each (supposed) minute out loud. Through this, the work gave rise to a tension between the mechanical measuring of time and time as subjective experience. This tension was compounded by the knowledge that participants were being watched to ensure they complied with the instruction to sit and count time for an hour.

An Hour explored the concept of time as duration, and how we might experience time passing when we give ourselves over to it. How better to consider time than to spend time with it? 

Performers: Amy Conti, Hannah Day, Laura Evans, Maria L. Felixmüller, Martha Jordan, Sam Thompson-Plant, Filip Vostal 

Produced by David Bell for Radar, with support from Marsha Meskimmon and Laura Dale at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Loughborough University.

Alison Ballard is a multi-media artist and lecturer, currently teaching at London Metropolitan University and Nottingham Trent University, UK. 

Martin Lewis is an artist, lecturer and PhD by practice research student at Loughborough University. His research is concerned with drawing, repetition and duration.

Projects

On Time

Two new commissions in partnership with the Institute for Advanced Studies' 20/21 'Time' theme. Read more