Public Space in a Private Time
What drew my attention to Acconci, however, was a small, maroon book whose pages bore his 1990 essay, ‘Public Space in a Private Time,’ to which the exhibition was titled in commemoration of.
Image credit: The Architect’s Newspaper
I first came across Vito Acconci’s work at Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York, an independent space dedicated to exploring the intersection of art, architecture, politics, and society. Notably within its exhibition, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the space, was a poster created by Jean-Michel Basquiat, who once frequented the area, as well as photographs capturing Shirin Neshat, the renowned Iranian artist, who once co-directed the space with her then-partner Kyong Park, the founder of ‘Storefront.’
What drew my attention to Acconci, however, was a small, maroon book whose pages bore his 1990 essay, ‘Public Space in a Private Time,’ to which the exhibition was titled in commemoration of.
“It used to be, you could walk down the streets of a city and always know what time it was. There was a clock in every store; all you had to do was look through the store window as you passed by.”
Opening with the above passage, Acconci proceeds to comment on the individualisation of time as “time aimed straight not for the heart but for the arm.” He emphasises that the electronic age eliminated the need for interpersonal relationships through providing all the information required for daily life, and in the privacy of one’s home, contrary to what was previously gained through public interactions.
“Public time was dead; there wasn't time anymore for public space; public space was the next to go.”
As I discussed these concepts with Andrea, who works at ‘Storefront,’ I contemplated how these discourses had transcended and reproduced themselves in contemporary contexts: what was once concrete space had become abstract in the wake of the information age that transgressed the man-made borders imposed by nations. Meanwhile, existing social, economic and political structures retained their power, utilising electronic operations to reinforce existing global hegemonic structures. This is evident in the disparity of manufactured goods that see items formerly produced by wealthier nations now produced by poorer ones for unconscionably lower costs, a process that transgresses time and space, blurring national borders. These nations still remain enslaved to existing hierarchies that obstruct any form of upward economic mobility, a process strategically reserved for wealthy nations, and now exacerbated by these technological accelerations.
“There's no space without time—a place has no life until time has gone by… There's no time without space—the past or the future can't be prelived or relived without a place to live it in.”
As Acconci recognised, space and time act as mutually reinforcing dynamics in that they are both essential for marking existence within physical realms. However, with the rise of media advancements, perhaps exceeding the bounds of the physical realm, time has increased its speed, thereby perpetuating the slowness of space. Acconci extends this notion to argue that space was in effect turned into time by digital speed traversing concrete spaces, and from this, some degree of individual agency was lost at the hand of higher forces that now control these newly abstracted spaces.
With this being said, individual agency also complements public spaces by allowing for personal introspection and contemplation to augment them. From public time shifting to a more private phenomenon, time for public space has arguably diminished; however, in Acconci’s world, this facilitated the entanglement of public and private space. The hybridity of these two spheres, which were traditionally dichotomised, became engaged as such in the wake of the newly emerging “virtual space,” a means for rendering public space private.
“The end is public, but the means of public art might be private. The end is people, but the means might be individual persons. The end is space, but the means might be fragments and bits.”
In understanding this hybridity in relation to time and space, private relationships with public spaces can then be conceived within public art, which inserts itself into existing environments to co-exist with, disrupt or redefine known spaces. Referencing individualism, which is often critiqued for eroding community life and normalising isolation, Acconci forges an alternative notion to this prospect — that in connecting with our individual selves, we are able to connect with spaces around us more deeply. Here, Acconci emphasises the dire importance of engaging with public art by inserting personal memories and imagination, thereby fostering private time within a public space.
To Acconci, pop music is the ‘new public art,’ an entity that does not require space but rather alludes to time itself. A once collective experience, music, too, has become increasingly individualised, though it still holds the potency to be experienced within any space or time; inducing what is the core of human emotion, memory, and inspiration. Amidst the changing tides of what we know to be public and private, music renders these notions obsolete through its spatial transcendence.
“Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time.”
— Jean-Michel Basquiat