To whom belongs the Time?

 

 

Marcello Mercado

To whom belongs the Time?

stereo, black/white

Running time: 1h 03 minutes,

2020

 

This videoinstallation explores the notion of time as a resource—one that is consumed not only by subjects but by the very medium itself. The video loop unfolds at a pace determined by the technical processes that sustain it, foregrounding duration as both material and concept.

The work features an inaudible soundtrack composed of frequencies known to stimulate photosynthesis, introducing a speculative layer in which the act of viewing is coupled with the possibility of non-human growth. Time, in this context, becomes a shared field of influence—between light, signal, plant, and viewer.

The conceptual framework draws from a reflection by Siegfried Zielinski in Variations on Media Thinking (2019), in which he revisits the political urgency once attached to the question, “To whom does the world belong?”—a question famously posed by Bertolt Brecht in his 1932 film Kuhle Wampe. Zielinski proposes that, in our present condition, a more pressing question has emerged: “To whom does the time belong?”

This work reclaims that question within the space of media and installation, where time is no longer merely experienced but expended—measured in energy, in bandwidth, in waiting. By making perceptible what usually remains invisible or inaudible, To whom does the time belong? invites us to reconsider our temporal entanglements with the systems we inhabit and the technologies we deploy.

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