Art, for me, is thinking about and responding to life or better ‘the whole existence’. The work of former artist Tehching Hsieh helps us to navigate through the universal circumstances of human life. His performances investigate ‘the whole existence’ by cutting up the passing of time into components and variables. In his artwork called One year performance you see him punch a time clock every hour on the hour for exactly one year. By dividing his life into units, giving his life mathematical parameters, he visualizes the passing of time.
Tehching Hsieh on One year performance: “One year is the human calculation of life, in basically one unit. And this (Wasting time) is the earth around the sun-one year. So it’s a very good way in a piece of art to talk about what life means. To me, in my philosophy of my whole life’s work. I would say life is a life sentence. Life is passing time. Life is free thinking.”
(DasPlatforms. (2014, April 30). Tehching Hsieh – One Year Performance 1980 – 1981 [YouTube]. Via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvebnkjwTeU)
Although he talks about his work as a philosophy it is interesting that he starts from non-philosophical situations in his performances; living on the streets of New York, tying himself to a fellow artist for a year, jumping out of a window from the second floor of a building and voluntary isolation. All these performances show how Tehching Hsieh tries to find freedom. Today he has found his freedom: “I don’t do art anymore. I no longer feel creative. I don’t want to do what the art world expects me to do. This is my exit. This is my freedom.”
(Marks, K,. (2014, April 30), Tehching Hsieh: the man who didn’t go to bed for a year. Via The Guardian)
(FACTLiverpool. (2010, October 28), Tehching Hsieh – One Year Performance 1980 — 1981 (Time Clock Piece) [YouTube]. Via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90izVR2Kip0)
Art, Design and Research 