CÄdric Tai
T(x)me [time] is supposed to be a contextual thing,
but the variable is in the middle, like jelly filling, or a hole in the head.
I know that brilliant people are studying Time as a phenomenon of culture, modern quantification, or freedomā¦ Iāve been informed this is a phenomenological approach, a sense of time that comes from sensing it with your internal clock as opposed to slicing and dicing quantified units.
I find myself stuck in certain orientations of time, like my shame around missing an important deadline because I perfectionistically couldnāt finish the work, or fearing that an upcoming day is ruined because itās 4 am, eyes wide open, the future is pissing into the present keeping me awake.
But those are examples of getting ahead of myself, because if time is just all in our heads, then itās real enough.
Some doctors are struggling to find the right way of explaining now that when they say:
āItās all in your headā that they donāt mean it dismissively, but as a way to locate the source of literal pain as stemming from ones mind, and thatās enough to BE real (and not imagined).
There are two delightful ways that the logical brain can re-orient time or re-frame our internal clock. One is to make the more factually accurate statement āI just donāt know yetā to diffuse anxiety, holding it at bay, where meddling by demanding answers only slows the process down. As time lays itself out, doom and panic become less and less likely; and it dawns on me that of course the situation it not nearly as dire as it originally seemed. So I just sit and wait and find out why things have transpired they way they have. When things turn out really great despite me not working on anything directly. I even forget that I used to spend so much of my time worrying.
Time is different when youāre late
than when you plan to be early
than when youāre waiting for him/them/her,
than when youāre performing,
than when you really need the public transit to be on time,
than when youāre on admin timeā¦
Thereās also the time it takes for me to realize that Iāve adopted a new habit or ritual, like having gone to yoga then a farmers market for 6 weeks in a row, or making the time to write, or my demisexual need to get to know someone really well over time before I can begin an intimate relationship.
Itās too easy to say that time is a thing between us. In Jennie Odellsā, lecture āWhat is Time, if not Money?ā the metaphor we live by is that TIME is this non-renewable resource, a multitude of concurrent scales that reveals how much (or how little) agency or power we have to just… meander. Between seed time, spiral time, and geological time, at some point you are either registering all of this within a bodily experience (until you canāt), OR we are an infinite being.
So where is time? Itās definitely not with the communal gut bacteria, nor is it the measurement between galaxies and stars which abstract it into quantum oblivion, so is it somewhere in the head? If one were to follow the concept to the point where oneās relationship to time could be changed, I can also see myself, my idea of work, my world being entirely altered, not just my thoughts around it.
See, when I feel inspired to write, brainstorms burn a path through toil and drudgery that a day job could never contain. Itās more like an agreement of something that needs to happen by a certain time, but not a specific day, itās just that even one month of no writing, no reflection, it feels like rushing through life until you get to your next accident.
I really needed to ask for help from all of my friends last Friday because four time cards were all due on the same day, the plight of the creative worker with a flexible schedule. I couldnāt keep time in my head, it didnāt add up, it took me 2 hours for an organization to figure out they sent me the wrong link to upload my hours. I asked if I could bill for that, of course they said no, but after we chatted they still added half an hour of work to both of our hours, so I feel like I still won.
Then thereās the mornings you spring up ready to write, the first three hours of your own time used perfectly. Jesse Meadows, aka āQueer Vengeanceā aka āJesseTheSluggishā makes this neon rainbow sticker that reads that āTime is not a thing to Manage, but a River to flow onā, and I think to myself
what about sponges
what about being bad at swimming
what about balance
what about being bad at capitalism
what about the persistent desire for autonomy
what about unmasking time
This week there was the morning that I was so ready to write because that morning Carmen and I chatted about how the villains in the 1996 movie Batman & Robin all actually had a pointā¦
Jim Carrey, as the Riddler loved questions,
two face by Tommy Lee Jones says it all comes down to chance,
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. Freeze and Uma Newman Thurman as Poison ivy both wanted to bring climate change to the worlds attention. At least compare it to the to the rich white guy with a vigilante penchant for street crime and you wonder if heās only the hero because you watch his trauma play out given the most time.
We went on a long tangent trying to figure out why there hasnāt been a Black, Asian or Latinx Batman, and then we got as far as knowing the BatCave would be under the anthropology museum in Mexico City and heād hide behind his Jumex art collection and be trying to take down the developers on the boards who somehow wouldnāt recognize him. We stopped short of writing dialogue because it felt like chat GPT could write the rest of the script and itād be just as bad.
I think about how I just need breaks from people and how the pandemic meant we were to choose nine people that we would relegate ourselves to spend all of our time with, and most of us just figured out how less meant more. It was almost as good of a deal as the unemployment I collected for over a year and a half.
But when I did an artist-in-residency for three months every year for the last two years, Iād wake up and feel terrible that I had no idea if I had spent the day well. I had written so many proposals about how NOW was the right time to do my work and that I knew exactly how to parse out my time. But in reality, it was so weird being left to my own devices and the only standard of time was this societal construct called āA weekā. Itās the most people are willing to commit to being available, whether thatās for therapy, getting supplies, or going out, but if something didnāt pan out, youād have to wait to try again next week. I even stopped applying for new residencies because I donāt know how much pretending I know what Iām doing I can take.
I keep being late to this letterpress class Iāve been taking every Wednesday night. Itās free for anyone who works there, which is ideal for us art handlers that only come in for a week or two when weāre available. The instructor said to me, You didnāt let me know youād be late, and donāt you work here? You should know better, justā¦ donāt be late.
But when Iām on my way, which I understand isnāt of much use if youāre in the middle of trying to start a class, Iām still going to need some encouragement to shift from being late to being HERE.
My first piece is a meta non-fiction piece, about how much time it took to make the print that explains how much time it takes to make the print, to master printing, and what I think I can handle the next time I go to print.
I have dreams where Iām writing my dreams down, I have anxiety nightmares where I canāt remember what I canāt remember. The slimy feelings linger, but scurry into the body when the lights come on.
I keep alluding to calculating but I havenāt done the math, I just have these loose list notes I left myself:
- Worrying as an unfortunate loss of time instead of being in the present
- Overanalyzing as an unfortunate loss of time instead of being in the present
- Overworking as an unfortunate use of time instead of resting to be able to be present
- āBeing in the presentā, meaning connecting with someone or gratitude
- āBeing in the presentā, meaning having your priorities straight
- āBeing in the presentā meaning getting all of your work done earlier and not needing to multitask, that absurd place between living and dying.
Regardless, trying to remember whatever I was meant to be doing feels like a waste of time, but Spinoza would say that whatever you or I actually get done is exactly what needed to happen.
Can I still join the Revolution even if Iām late? The word means āto returnā doesnāt that mean itāll come back around?
CÄdric Tai is an undisciplinary artist, born in Detroit, has an Art Education degree & BFA fromĀ Michigan State University, and an MFA from the Glasgow School ofĀ Art (2013).
Tai thinks through sculpture, talking, writing, performance and experimental exhibitions. Their artwork and teaching focuses on neurodivergent experience, labor and politics. They have partnered with neuroscientists, academics from critical psychiatry, artist collectives, disability justice social media influencers, and somatic therapists to co-create accessible resources particularly around mental health, potentially as a form of anti-capitalist solidarity. Lovingly referred to as ‘Pathologically Curious’, Cedric shifts Autism/ADHD shame into wonder, absurdity, meaningful challenges, and joyful interdependence. Some of their work is setup systematically (coding/spreadsheets/workshops/repetition) so that a given audience can become aware of their relationship to and agency within otherwise invisible structures. Other works are like love letters, or are intentionally not efficient, wherein they come to know someone/something through immersing themselves in an intimate process.