Finding time that is soft to you

Two ingredients for de-centralization, part 2

This is a transcript of the opening and closing ritual for the sixth General Assembly of Hologram organizers called U.G.H. [United Groundskeepers of Hologram]. UGH is the main manifestation of our years of effort to de-centralize the project and have it escape the gravity of the Art World. In this assembly, I, Magda, passed on my position of the holder of this assembly to the next Administrix, Shaneal, and became just another rank member.

CLOSING: TIME

I learned that time changes with gravity. If we are in a place with a heavy center -like walking on the Earth- time will get comparatively sludgy. But if we move -like, say, flying through the space- passing by big planets, vast spaces of nothing, super dense black holes, and clouds of lightweight gases, we can stretch and shrink time.

I think that so much of de-centralization is learning to play with time. In The Hologram we have all been learning that we can create time for ourselves and others. It is not easy, but it is possible. In organizing, we have also been figuring out how, as responsibilities shift, somebody’s time might become very slow and packed while somebody else is flying by. This is the reason why tuning into a collective time -such as coming to monthly Community of Practice- is so important.

One of the reasons we have been pretty hell-bent on escaping the gravity of the Art World and blasting into the unknown space has been the capitalist time under which it operates. I want to remember that we are here because we are working together on something ancient and slow. Over the past couple of years here in The Hologram, we have been able to get on a much more stretchy time rope which can react to the curveballs of our individual lives as well as the seasons. And this, too, is what I call de-centralization.

Now, there are still so many tricks we have not mastered. How do you schedule a Hologram if your time is squeezing the life of you? How can we be both slow and deliberate while being ready to react to emergencies? There are so many ways to play with time that I don’t know yet.

But if you ever need to slow down time, I got you! Here is what I learned from physics about the possibilities to slow down time in a form of a poem:

Recording with some synthesized sounds as accompaniment and an instructional image

If there are two objects, one of them moving and one standing still

the time of the one standing still is running faster.

If I spin you, where have you gone?

When I run away, I’m not here anymore.

I can still see you there in the distance, standing still, frowning…

How did I dare to be queer after all we have been through?

But I’m gone.

I don’t exist in your time anymore.

Think about the Earth.

Think about the world underneath this one.

The closer you get to a heavy object, like the core of the Earth,

the slower time runs.

A clock on top of a mountain runs faster

than the one at the bottom of the sea.

So, if you ever find a moment that is soft to you,

you can lay down

put your feet up

and time will slow down for you heart to take a break.

I also learned about time that it’s not a line

and if they’re trying to tell you you can’t bend it

they are trying to steal it from you!

Time is change, the way breathing is.

Breath, breath, breath, breath, breath, breath, take a breath

breath

And you might hear the moment in its own whisper:

“I feel you too.

I want you too.

I am a stocking, full of grain.

My eyes are holes

into my brain.”