Visiting the Yale Architecture Gallery

“Technics, far from being merely in time, properly constitutes time.”
Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time 1: The Fault of Epimetheus

Our contemporary moment is structured thoroughly by the synchronization of information, time, and bodies. This synchronicity has become increasingly defined throughout history. From the structuring of the seven day calendar by the Babylonians to the 1883 standardization of railway time in the U.S, the coordination and organization of bodies have become increasingly precise and controlled. With the instantaneity of zoom calls and precision of calendar notifications on smart devices, real-time synchronization has collapsed space and time, allowing an unprecedented ease of connection between people and information.

This rhetoric of synchronization and connection obscures the reality of frictions and disconnections that exist in the usage of these technologies. From disembodied interactions to awkward mismatches between audio and video due to unstable internet connections, the desynchronization we encounter today demonstrates a technical gap from total seamless synchronicity. The exhibition interrogates this narrative and asks whether synchronization can go beyond its current subjugation by our technical apparatuses.

Only by speculating on alternative technics and other forms of media can new approaches, methods, and objects be put forward to manifest temporality beyond our current dogma of synchronicity. Thus, by reevaluating how we perceive, experience and express temporal rhythms, the exhibition suggests an alternative definition of togetherness (syn-) and time (kronos).