Time Crimes (Los Cronocrímenes)

Have you ever played Chrono-Tron? It’s a time travel game wherein you have to use time traveling copies of yourself to achieve a task. Timing and order are key, however, making sure future copies do not interrupt past copies of yourself as they go about setting the scene is of the upmost importance. Such a disturbance can effectively destroy all the careful work achieved before the interruption. It gets hairy fast and playing this game continuously begins to effect your perception of reality.

On one such perturbed perception of reality, I came upon my bike leaning against the mailbox outside of my house, and I thought, “Oh, how did this get here? This is just what I wanted.”, then I had to think for a second, “How did this really get here?!”, and I looked around for a time traveling copy of myself. Of course, I had merely forgotten that I had left it there when I absentmindedly ducked inside to retrieve my jacket, but anyway… this trouble with time traveling copies is what Time Crimes is all about, albeit a little more macabre and absurd (a good absurd).

Spoiler Alert!

Time Crimes is Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo’s¹ first first full length feature film, and its a terrific one at that. The film is thickly laden with suspense. I was both glued and trying to look away from the start of the film. It carries this ominous feeling so well because of the setting in a remote country side with dense and dark woods and it keeps you filled in on a need to know basis. For instance, you don’t know who the man in the bandages is and he cuts a terrifying figure. Once he is revealed to be none other than our unwilling time traveler, Hector, this suspense slowly subsides and is gradually replaced with absurdity. Hector begins to self-mutilate, so to speak, in an attempt to restore his life to normal. At each time-traveling iteration you begin to wonder, “Oh boy, what’s he gonna do now!”

Despite this propensity to wander into the absurd, the film manages to deliver unforeseeable events that retain continuity (in the film sense), are entirely plausible (given that you’ve accepted the ability to time travel), and deliver a helpful dose of surprise. The main point of contention possibly lies in the need to suspend belief that Hector would have the wherewithal to both, understand his predicament after the brief explanation given by the scientist, and not interfere with his time traveling copy. I saw a few moments where Hector 3 (as the third copy of Hector is called) could have interfered with Hector 2 (who is already aware of the time travel and its predicaments) with minimal effect in the continuity, but tremendous effect on the disastrous outcome. In other words, two time traveling heads are better than one.

The film ends is a deluge of quasi-comical tragedy and conquest, in so far as, time conquers all, and sometimes you have to know when to sit back, relax, and wait for it to pass.

6×6x2009

Today was the kickoff of the 6×6x2009 show/sale at the Rochester Contemporary gallery, wherein thousands of artworks measuring 6×6 inches and created by artists from around the world are put on anonymous display and sold for 20 bucks a pop in a frenzied winner-take-all dash for your favorite pieces. The place was crowded with art browsers when I arrived on my bike at around 6:30PM, the pieces went on sale at 7:30PM. I perused the pieces, made a list of nine pieces, whittled it down to six, ranked these, and then bought three stickers that would mark my spoils.

Floating about the pieces I most desired—a swath of three pieces by ex-Marine, self-taught Minnesota artist Larry Hunter (I learned this after the artists were revealed, of course)—I overheard numerous conversations about his pieces, many people desired his work! I had to relent my initial desire to hoard the collection and honed on one piece, the one that first caught my eye, and the one I hovered inches away from as the count down began and the frenzy prepared to go nuclear.

Above is a still from the 6×6x2009 video, it depicts the piece I wanted and I am happy to say that I got it! But I can’t pick it up until July, so the still will have to suffice.

I also picked up pieces by UK artist Sharon Lovatt and NY artist John Fitzsimmons. I was captivated by Lovatt’s piece, it is a faint, delicate drawing of the outline of a crowd of people, then covered with vertical strips of cellophane tape, and finally, woven with a very loose strand of wavy, loopy, red thread. I was photographed off-guard while studying this piece. (I hope Gerry sends me the pic!) Fitzsimmons’ piece was one of five or six figure studies: a woman standing, sitting, and walking; they were playful, traditional studies. All but the one that really stood out to me were taken by the time I made it over to his pieces! How fortunate for me!

I had a pleasant bike ride home; satisfied with myself and my haul… heh heh.

An Allusion

Sometimes I think my eyes are charged coupled device (CCD) detectors, like the ones in digital cameras, converting photons into electrons, and after a particularly bright and visually stimulating day, like today, flying across the US, above brightly illuminated puffy clouds, their potential wells become saturated. On such a day, I find I must frequently close my eyes, but even with my eyes closed, brilliant flashes dance across my view, curtains of excess charge billow before my eyes and against my eyelids, my own private aurora borealis. I blame my old detectors class for this allusion of illusions.