uROCK
Interactive multimedia installation · 2023
©Stephan JurdensuRock emerges from an exploration of time, permanence and existence.
The installation invites a participant into an intimate encounter with a rock — a presence whose existence unfolds on a timescale far beyond that of a human life. Through touch, sound and time-lapse moving image, the work brings two radically different forms and scales of existence into dialogue: the rock and the human.
As the participant lifts the headphones, a five-minute sound piece is activated and played in a loop. A voice-over accompanies the encounter, addressing the participant and inviting them to contemplate a scale of time that exceeds human experience.
“Can you imagine?”
The question opens onto the temporal distance at the centre of uRock: the rock carries millions of years of existence, while, in relation to its lifespan, the human sitting before it has almost just been born.
uRock confronts these two temporalities: the fleeting nature of human existence and the deep time embodied by the rock. Individual lives and generations appear momentary against a material world that existed long before us and may remain long after we disappear. The encounter invites us to shift our sense of scale and consider not only the brevity of an individual life, but the presence of humanity itself within a world whose timescales extend far beyond our own.
Presented: June 2023 - João Mota Auditorium, Amadora, Portugal
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