On Duration and Multiplicity

Abstract

This article addresses the increasing inclusion of durational art and performance within museum contexts. In particular, it considers the recent development of group shows of durational performance as exemplified by exhibitions such as Manchester International Festival's ‘Marina Abramovic Presents…’ (2009) and ‘11 Rooms’(2011). Durational performance has often been described as providing resistance to an ever-accelerating pace of life. This article examines this assumption. Considering the phenomenon of the group show of durational performance in relation to a range of theories of time – from E.P. Thompson's analysis of time-discipline under industrial capitalism, to Henri Bergson's philosophy of duration as qualitatively multiple, to recent work in sociology on time in the information age – this article considers how durational performance and the curatorial practices that surround it might both participate in and respond to contemporary experiences of time as multiple and (relentlessly) continuous.