8 Hours or 8 Minutes

Since the beginning of this year (2022) I’ve been experimenting with durational performances, in the spirit of the NYC minimalists and performance artists of the 70’s. The concerts have been called 8 Hours or 8 Minutes, a sort of joke referring to the perception of time, but a critique of the standard 8-hour workday/40 hour work week. To perform for such a long stretch of time on a single instrument (a Prophet 12 and Strymon Volante) is both physically and mentally demanding. It requires a shift in perspective and to get there I followed the advice of a good friend: To approach playing not as a mountain climb, but as a love affair. Leaping off the cliff from this foundational understanding, the performances are not tests of endurance, but deep inner journeys, explorations of love and awareness witnessed in a public setting. I liken it to riding a wave: a swelling of emotion which is palpable in the room, building gradually over the eight hours I perform.  

8 Hours or 8 Minutes explore our relationship with time. Time weaves itself around us – it is the material in which we swim. We have attempted to measure it, to capture it, wearing it on our wrist or in our pocket. This objectified, measured time has in many ways become our master. Our days and weeks are compartmentalized, and the length of an hour is thought to be universal. However, an hour lived and an hour measured are two entirely different things. We all know time spent in boring meeting passes much slower than a conversation with a good friend.

8 Hours brings us back into our experiential relationship with time – with the fabric of our very lives. To give to the listener a place to stop and explore what it means to be in time. To stop rushing thoughtlessly from one appointment to the next, to experience the unmeasured, unquantifiable, in short – the human side of time. By playing works which bring our awareness to the passing moment, the audience is reminded of how time actually moves, listening to these works which contain repetition, silence, subtle change – the listener is invited where to experience a myriad of emotions, they must allow themselves to slow down, to step out of the comfort zone our daily structure provides.

To perform for such a long stretch of time on a single instrument is both physically and mentally demanding. It requires a shift in perspective and to get there I followed the advice of a good friend: To approach playing not as a mountain climb, but as a love affair. Leaping off the cliff from this foundational understanding, the performances are not tests of endurance, but deep inner journeys, explorations of love and awareness witnessed in a public setting. I liken it to riding a wave: a swelling of emotion which is palpable in the room, building gradually over the eight hours I perform. 




 

performance:

durational performance, repetition, minimalism, time






photos by Frankie Casillo