Interviews with artists such as Hiroshi Sugimoto, Béla Tarr, and Christian Marclay explore how temporality is represented in visual art. They allow integration of practical and theoretical perspectives (Crary, 2013; Rush, 2007). Derrida, Deleuze, and Ricoeur provide frameworks to critically and narratively analyze time, while Schön and Gray & Sullivan guide methodological reflection.
I received two emails in which they politely declined to collaborate with Sugimoto, but I’m not giving up.
Dear Geza,
Thank you for your email and for your interest in Hiroshi Sugimoto.
We are delighted about your project, however, due to Mr. Sugimoto's busy schedule, he will have to decline your request at this time.
We wish you the best of luck with your future PhD.
Sincerely,
Fraenkel Gallery
Hello Mr. Geza Csosz,
Thank you for your inquiry regarding Hiroshi Sugimoto.
We regret to inform you that Mr. Sugimoto is unable to participate in interviews for individual research purposes.
With new exhibitions and numerous projects currently in progress, it is very difficult for him to make the necessary time.
We apologize that we cannot be of assistance on this occasion and kindly ask for your understanding.
Wishing you every success with your research.
Best Regards,
Natsumi
Annotated Bibliography – Hiroshi Sugimoto on Time, Presence, and Photography
ArtReview. (2023, October 11). Hiroshi Sugimoto’s time machine.
“They wanted to focus on my photographs—and I think that is right: my works are about time.”
Sugimoto describes photography as his “time machine,” compressing entire durations into a single surface.
Frames his career not as style-shifting but as a lifelong interrogation of temporal experience.
Burke, K. (2024, August 3). I make reality out of fantasy. The Guardian.
“I make reality out of fantasy—the camera is the tool that renders imagination believable.”
Dioramas and wax figures show how photography constructs a convincing “present” that never truly existed.
Challenges the notion of the photograph as indexical proof; instead, it is performative presence.
Wallpaper. (2023, October 14). On time and truth: Hiroshi Sugimoto.*
“Seascapes work in bedrooms because they stop the feeling of time.”
The horizon becomes a phenomenological “zero point” of time and perception.
Images suspend temporal flow, creating a condition outside of ordinary presence.
Time Sensitive Podcast. (2024, June 12). Photography as a form of timekeeping.
“My pictures are time fossils: time preserved by light.”
Discusses Enoura Observatory and designing structures aligned to solar and astronomical time—5,000-year scale.
Views photography not as frozen instants but as stratified temporal deposits.
Ocula. (2017, May 5). Conversation with Hiroshi Sugimoto.
“In my movie pictures the exposure time equals the length of the film.”
Long exposures collapse hours into a single luminous surface.
His methods are both technical and philosophical experiments in the materiality of time.
ART21. (2005). Tradition and Memory [Season 3].
“Photography is a time machine: the preservation of memory and time.”
Links personal memory to cultural memory; photographs as vehicles of survival across time.
Presents the medium as both archival and metaphysical practice.
Drawing Matter. (2024, April 29). A conversation with Sugimoto, Chipperfield & Rugoff.
“For the movie works, the exposure corresponds exactly to the duration of the projected film.”
Exposures as “precise time models,” contrasting with blurred architectural series.
Shows how different protocols generate different temporal constructions.
Say Who. (2018, October 19). Versailles interview with Hiroshi Sugimoto.
“The whole film is two or three hours; in the photograph only white light remains—something the human eye cannot see.”
Theatres expose a temporality inaccessible to direct perception.
Distinction between machine-time (camera) and human-time (viewer).
Financial Times. (2024, May). Photography is a second-class citizen…
“I consider myself a traditional photographer, yet I am most interested in the nature of light itself.”
Works like Lightning Fields and Opticks foreground light as direct temporal trace.
Challenges photography’s cultural status while expanding its conceptual scope.
ART21. (2005). Marcel Duchamp’s influence [Season 3].
“Exhibition design is thinking about time—how the viewer experiences a sequence of works.”
Extends temporality beyond the photograph to curatorial dramaturgy.
Suggests that perception of art is itself an unfolding temporal montage.