In conversation with Jane Garvey, BBC Radio 4

In my own time, consists of a series of episodes drawing together perceptions of time from different philosophical and cultural viewpoints. Episodes revealing how ancient societies regarded time and space in relation to direct experience – encapsulated in the phrase ‘as long as it takes to milk a cow’ – are shown alongside treatments of Einstein’s theories, ideas about civil timekeeping and the possibility of time travel. Influenced by 19th-century scientific demonstrations, the artist explores these ideas through her own actions and activities. However Weir’s work is as much involved with the qualities and structures of film-making as it is with science. The film explores the connection between the concept of one’s self as a being in time and the sense of one’s life as a narrative. Events in the film are portrayed in a rational style; but oscillate between fact and fiction, between documentary and cinematic illusion.

“...The emphasis on performance and witnessing is something that runs through Weir’s work. Her images, in the medium of time and light, often embody the scientific point being made in her films. Simultaneously, they offer a gloss on the phenomena being observed, reminding us of our human perspective as observers of these phenomena.

In My Own Time (2007) offers the clearest example of this approach to film-making. The title itself echoes Einstein’s dictum that an observer influences the outcome of an experiment as Weir presents a work on time, in her own time or style. It also refers to a moment in the film where she tells a farmer to start milking a cow ‘in your own time.’ This rural episode gradually turns out to be an experiment as we discover that ancient measurements of time ‘were regarded in terms of direct experience.’

Other assertions on time in the film are accompanied by experimental performances with lasers, mirrors and Bunsen burners. Each though is couched in a colloquial, domestic setting in the Irish countryside. The camera idles in these scenes, following the progress of a dog, catching the light on the hills or minutely recording the crystalline raindrops on windows, and plants. Observers of phenomena in the film imprint themselves on our minds as they chat while waiting for an eclipse or gauge the quantity of milk a cow provides on a daily basis.

These moments ground the contemporary scientific theories of time in a longer historical tradition. Understanding how analogy and domestic standards for the measurement of time were used in the past helps us to consider that present theories of time may also be grounded in the personal, no matter how outlandish and complex they may appear. When Weir mentions Professor Ronald Mallet’s experiment on time travel it sounds futuristic and abstract. Newpaper articles though point out that ‘When he was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at age 33. After reading The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, Mallett was determined to find a way to go back and warn his father about the dangers of smoking.’ Science and our curiosity for knowledge, then, can often be found rooted in personal desires and motivations. The imperfect world of direct experience plays a vital role in our understanding of the more perfect theoretical concepts. Weir always reminds us of this and just as importantly she always keeps the wonder of science in focus. It is not coincidence that she highlights Paul Tod’s casual comment on singularities – the little bit of unknown. It is that unknown that makes science so fascinating. There is a magic to science that is often obscured by its complexities. Weir understand this and uses the medium of film to return us to the wonder. In My Own Time twice refers to Steven Spielberg, mentioning Close Encounters of the Third Kind and through the final images of a Delorean car, referring to Back to the Future (produced by Spielberg). These films recaptured the magic of cinema while pondering the nature of time and Weir traces this lineage right back to the Lumiere brothers and their actualities. In doing this she outlines the history of her own artistic medium and its close relationship to time, evolving almost in synchronicity with the theories of quantum physics and the big bang.”

Exerpt taken from Cherry Blossom Time by Francis McKee

Related Essays

Time Moves On, Janna Levin

The shaggy dog in the river, Graham Parker

Cherry Blossom Time, Francis McKee

In my own time

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by Janna Levin

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by Graham Parker

Cherry blossom time
by Francis McKee