The TIK project
TIK is a project, an interest into ecology and media art, a collaborative experiment with time …
taking an ecological approach to observing patterns in time and time control systems…
the creative tools we build to generate new audio and visual artworks and mediate a creative discourse on ecological time …
an 'horloge a vent'(wind clock), an imaginary time keeping device regulated by the irregular movement of the wind …
workshops, art radio sessions, public access digital media archive, public presentations, conferences and exhibitions, a critical publication … 're-inventing ecological time'…
The project TIK (Time Inventors' Kabinet) will take place over 2 years, as a collaborative action by 3 core partners (OKNO, Brussels, COL-ME, Bratislava and ESC, Graz) and numerous other contributors.
Distributed research and creation labs will be organized, with ongoing workshop points in each partner region, taking an ecological approach (in the etymological sense of the term: a study approach taking into account relations of organisms to one another and to their physical environment and overall context) to observing patterns in time and time control systems.
Our share work will be an investigation into time relations within biological and circumstantial ecologies, through the lens of system aesthetics. Using media technology and electronics as research tools in our shared laboratories, we collect data from various ecosystems over a period of time. The artistic output of this data collection process is the creation of electronic interfaces that we use to reinterpret the data with goal of exploring time related poetics such as synchronicity and (ir)regularity through electronics, and of developing a common language about time.
We use creative tools we build to generate new audio and visual artworks and mediate a creative discourse on Eco Time. We do this by hosting a series of workshops, art radio sessions, public presentations, conferences and exhibitions, finalized by a publicly available process archive of all findings and results of the TIK project and a critical publication, as a record and guide to 're-inventing ecological time'.
A primary metaphor for our approach with this project is an 'horloge a vent' (wind clock), an imaginary time keeping device regulated by the irregular movement of the wind. In practice, the windclock can be viewed as an organism that grabs inputs from the diverse flows of energy around it and transforms them into variable rythms to synchronize with. As it is, it can be driven by the wind, or by any other stream.
Through this project we seek to explore new approaches to experiencing time and to use this approach to research the possibilities for collaboration and synchronicity that may be found when we take on different time systems. We explore the outcome of giving-over control of time to natural and environmental processes.

