How can the montage of time-related statements extracted from cinematic sources function as a practice-based method to reveal the conceptual instability and linguistic construction of time, particularly in relation to the impossibility of a fixed present?
At this early stage, the project is clearly situated within a practice-based research framework, where the primary mode of inquiry is not theoretical exposition but iterative making. The work is in its initial phase, and its direction remains deliberately open. Experimentation is not a preliminary step but the core methodological condition of the research. Each act of collecting, selecting, and arranging filmic fragments functions as both production and investigation, allowing the emerging structure of the work to inform its conceptual development.
The material consists of sentences extracted from films in which time is explicitly referenced. These fragments are approached not as quotations in a narrative sense, but as units within a developing corpus. As the collection expands, it becomes increasingly evident that these statements do not converge toward a unified understanding of time. Instead, they reveal a multiplicity of incompatible frameworks: time as measurable quantity, time as subjective experience, and time as illusion or non-existence. This divergence is not resolved but actively maintained within the structure of the work. In this respect, the project resonates with the cinematic thinking of Andrei Tarkovsky, particularly his conception of time as a sculptural and durational substance, resistant to reduction into linear or unified forms.
Editing, in this context, operates as a form of analysis. The juxtaposition of statements from different films produces relations that were not present in their original contexts. Meaning does not reside within individual sentences but emerges through their interaction, particularly where contradiction or dissonance occurs. This approach resonates with the principles of montage articulated by Sergei Eisenstein, although here the collision takes place at the level of language and concept rather than image alone. At the same time, this method can be situated in relation to the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze (and, by extension, Félix Guattari), particularly in terms of temporal relations that are no longer governed by linear causality but emerge through discontinuity, fragmentation, and coexistence.
As the work develops, the temporal structure itself becomes unstable. Early experiments suggest a progression from apparent coherence—where time is presented as ordered and measurable—toward increasing inconsistency and eventual breakdown. In later stages, simultaneous or overlapping statements undermine the possibility of a singular temporal reference point. This condition can be related to the concept of relativity of simultaneity, in which no universal “now” can be established across different frames of reference. The audiovisual form thus begins to model, rather than merely describe, the instability of temporal experience. In this sense, the work implicitly aligns with a shift toward what Gilles Deleuze describes as a direct presentation of time, where temporal disjunction replaces continuity.
A key methodological decision at this stage is to resist closure. Rather than constructing a work that proves or asserts a definitive claim about time, the project seeks to sustain a field of tension in which multiple, conflicting propositions coexist. The absence of resolution is not a lack but a deliberate condition that allows the viewer to encounter the limits of temporal language. In this sense, the work aligns with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s notion that meaning is contingent upon use and context, and cannot be fixed independently of them. At the same time, the project does not aim to illustrate these theoretical positions directly, but to operate alongside them, using audiovisual practice as a site in which the instability of the present can be materially and perceptually tested.
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