Facta #2

by Fred Paulino
"It is the epoch style of an styleless epoch".
(Laura Erber)
What happens at the exact moment of death? Among
the most varied interpretations of a scientific, religious
or esoteric nature to this question that inevitably
accompanies us, one seems to me the most natural: there
are those who believe that a review of a man 's life flashes
on high speed and reverse chronology. As a rewind of our
complete story, it is the so called "near-death". According
to this assumption, more precisely in the most unique,
unexplained and extreme event of an existence, life seems
to contradict itself: the logic of the experience of aging,
maturity and time are suddenly reversed so we can get back
to what we were at the beginning. A lonely and ultimate
return to our most personal home.
Similarly, this publication, which in its first issue
addressed the Apocalypse - the imminent death of the
universe - and has declared itself as having been "born
already dead," now turns its eyes to the past. Following our
proposal of approaching, freely and with the participation
of a network of collaborators, broad themes that relate in
different ways to the idea of Gambiologia, this time we
discuss accumulation and hoarding practices: ways man
relates with time beginning with the acquisition and
custody of material objects.
We definitely do not present these issues by sampling
exotic characters with a mania to keep valuables. What
this edition of Facta investigates is how the habit of
accumulating seems to become, in the contemporary
world, increasingly more common. And more: How
antiques, waste and discarded items, objects supposedly
with no prospect of life-after-death have been valuable
raw material and inspiration for the creation of works of
art and design pieces.
t
The relationship of the average contemporary citizen
with time sounds confusing. We are obliged today to
press a faster pace to our daily life than what is humanly
reasonable. The present happens so fast that it is unlikely
not to be confused with memories of the past and plans
for the future.
In 1967, Guy Debord announced what he called a "cyclical
time". According to him, there is an inseparable relationship
between "human history" and "natural history.The second
would only exist effectively if understood by the first: "
the time-realization of man, as it takes place through the
mediation of a society, is equal to a humanization of time."
Thus, the more a society becomes aware of the passage of
time, the more it denies it, treating it not as what passes,
but as what returns. In contrast, the bourgeoisie, the
"owner of power," would be linked to the time of labor.
The imperative of productivity, the accumulation of goods
and capital would raise the idea of irreversible time,
worldly unified." The triumph of irreversible time is also
its metamorphosis into the time of things, because the
weapon of its victory was precisely the mass production of
objects, according to the laws of goods. "
But what happens today is that goods are disposable.
Bauman (2005) defines our society as one governed by a
"liquid life", which "projects the world and all its animate
and inanimate fragments as consumption objects, or in
other words, as objects that lose their usefulness (and
therefore their vitality, attraction, seductive power and
value) as they are used. " He adds: "these have a limited life
expectancy and, once this limit is exceeded, they become
unfit for consumption." That is, time, now dictated by
production rules in a context of speculative economy,
literally escapes from our hands.
Linking the analyzes of both authors, the question
remains: would, then, the irreversibility of our history be
diluted in a moment of lost time?
t
In this over accelerated century of a rhythm ruled
by corporations and their strategies of technological
advancement and planned obsolescence, we can observe
two recurring facts which perhaps are merely escapes to
offset our possible unresolved relationship with time: the
anxiety to glimpse the future and the longing to worship
the past.
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