The time design bureau

“To give shape to the daily times, to create a style – or a plurality of styles – of management of the durations, cadences, velocities, recurrences, succession that articulate our activities. This is what temporal design aims to overcome the limited relationship that, in contemporary civilization, we have with time. In the daily management we treat it as an interchangeable resource, at the experiential level we take note of its existence mainly in occasion of temporal conflicts: an urgent deadline to be respected, an unwelcome interruption, an unnerving wait. Is it conceivable a more creative management of time that addresses it with qualitative criteria and also enhances the rewarding aspects?”

Albert Mayr

Through the workshop that will take place at the Museo Novecento, Albert Mayr will try to answer this question: is it possible to learn how to manage time in a different and creative way? The answer comes with The time design bureau: from March 24 to April 17, meetings will be held twice a week with the artist, individual or group, in which to open a reflection on the conflictual aspects of our time, identifying needs and preferences, discussing possible parameters of temporal negotiation in work, family and friends.

The cycle of meetings will be presented on Wednesday, March 18 at 17:30, in the presence of the artist and Valentina Gensini.
At the end of the meeting Laura Monaldi will present the unpublished video “Albert Mayr. The Harmonic Path. Time design project”, published by the Archivio Carlo Palli of Prato, directed by Stefano Cecchi and photographs by Carlo Cantini, produced on the occasion of the event held on October 11, 2014 at the Renai Park of Signa, on the occasion of the Tenth Day of Contemporary Art, promoted by Amaci and in collaboration with the Museo Novecento.

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The video traces the musical research and experimentation on the soundscape of Albert Mayr to become concrete in the public score and in the performance of “The Harmonic Path”, as a real artistic realization of the poetics of Time Design.
The discipline proposed by Mayr is based on temporal design
that is to give shape to everyday life by creating a style – or a plurality of styles – to manage duration, cadence, speed that characterize our activities, to live time in a more creative way, strengthening its quality and drawing rewards.
The aesthetics of everyday life is an essential component of contemporary civilization; everyday objects and built spaces are the result of an elaborate design work. An attention that has not involved a fundamental dimension of our life: daily time.

Albert Mayr further explains: “We usually think of time as an enemy, because we mainly get acquainted with it in unpleasant situations… We have been unlearned to appreciate those situations that can be rewarding on a temporal, rhythmic level, such as a conversation with a pleasant cadence or a meeting at the right time. We can’t think of everyday time as something that deserves a creative approach. The discipline of Time Design wants to demonstrate that it is possible to combine functional and formal criteria, and that for each activity, a time structure adapted to the characteristics of each individual can also be much more productive than another based on criteria of efficiency alone (or deemed such)”.

The Time Design Bureau is inspired by the Bureau of Imaginary Exchange opened by the artist Paul Woodrow in Calgary in 1977, and the Art/life Consueling practiced by Linda Montano in the eighties at the New Museum in New York.

The meetings will be held on the following days from 16.30 to 18:00:

24 March

27 March

31 March

3 April

7 April

10 April

14 April

17 April