1.2.7: Time and Motion
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Time and Motion is a bit tricky when it comes to listing it as an Element of Art. Often time and motion are revealed through how other Elements of Art are handled, such as a blurred line. Some scholars prefer to list Time and Motion as a Principle of Design for this reason. However, some mediums, such as video art, use time and motion as an actual element. Part of what makes art "art" is that things are not always "black-and-white" or "this-or-that," sometimes they are "both/and" depending on the context. When we explore the Principles, we will see the category of Directional Forces, which overlaps with the idea of Time and Motion as an Element of Art.
Time and motion is employed in both static and in time-based mediums and can show a direct action or the intended path for the viewer ‘s eye to follow through a piece.
Techniques such as scale and proportion (also a Principle) are used to create the feeling of motion or the passing of time in static visual artwork. For example, on a flat picture plane, an image that is smaller and lighter colored than its surroundings will appear to be in the background. Another technique for implying motion and/or time is the placement of a repeated elements in different areas within an artwork to suggest the transitioning of an object through space through time, and yet it is contained in a single, still image or a series of still images.
Visual experiments in time and motion were first produced in the mid-19th century. The photographer Eadweard Muybridge is well known for his sequential shots of humans and animals walking, running, and jumping, which he displayed together to illustrate the motion of his subjects.
Eadweard Muybridge, Animal Locomotion, Plate 626, collotype photograph, 1887, 24 x 31 cm. National Gallery of Art. public domain.
_by_Umberto_Boccioni.jpg?revision=1&size=bestfit&width=550&height=550)
Umberto Boccioni, Dynamism of a Biker, oil on canvas, 1913, 70 x 95 cm, Wikimedia Commons. public domain
Boccioni's repeated lines and shapes exemplifies a feeling of motion along with the "Futurist" idea of man as a machine. Futurism is an early 20th century art movement based in Italy that celebrated the motion and power of machines. (I think I see a figure on a bicycle in there. How about you?)
While static art forms have the ability to imply or suggest time and motion, the time-based mediums of film, video, kinetic sculpture, and performance art are other artforms that also demonstrate time and motion. Film is made up of many static images that are quickly passed through a lens. Video is essentially the same process, but digitally-based and with fewer frames per second. Performance art takes place in real time and makes use of real people and objects, much like theater. Kinetic art is art that moves, or depends on movement, for its effect. All of these mediums use time and motion as a key aspect of their forms of expression.
Will Reiche, Kunstmaschine, kinetic art, 2007 (looped gif, 93 frames, 7.4 s)