GMU:Patterns/Özge Börekci

The Line Takes Time

Overview

The Line Takes Time investigates Weimar through walking, duration, and line. It explores how a line is produced not only by movement through space, but also by the time spent in certain places.

In this project, the line is both something measurable and something relational. It is generated through speed, rhythm, pauses, and dwell time, yet it also points to the idea that forming a relation with a place takes time. The line does not simply pass through the city; it gains weight where time, attention, and attachment begin to gather.

The project begins with the question: How does a walking body produce different lines of duration across different spatial conditions? In a small and accessible city like Weimar, time is not only about travel distance, but also about where one chooses to stay, slow down, or pass through.

Roots: From Malleable Boundaries to The Line Takes Time

The idea of ''bubble conditions'' in The Line Takes Time comes from the notion of social bubbles that we explored in previous group project, Malleable Boundaries. Malleable Boundaries_Submission During that process, I was especially interested in the possible bubble between campus users and local residents in Weimar. Malleable Boundaries approached invisible social boundaries through proximity, distance, separation, and the relation between bodies. In that project, the bubble was not understood as a physically drawn boundary, but rather as a condition in which people may share the same space while still remaining separated through different agendas, perceptions, and ways of relating to one another. The installation represented this bubble analogy through the construction of two separate rooms, aiming to create a visual and bodily connection between two strangers located in different spaces.

The Line Takes Time does not directly continue that project, but carries the question it opened into another scale. Instead of focusing on an enclosed installation space, the project turns toward the urban structure of Weimar. It asks whether certain areas within the city are experienced as more separated, inward-looking, or selective than others. In this sense, the “bubble” is not treated as a fixed conclusion, but as a condition to be investigated through walking, thresholds, passages, and the time spent in particular places.

Because Weimar is a small and accessible city, the question of the bubble cannot be read only through distance or transportation. The relation between a place and the city may be understood less through how long it takes to reach it, and more through how much time is spent there, whether one merely passes through it, or whether the place holds the body for a while. Therefore, the project considers bubble conditions not only through walking routes, but also through slowing down, staying, repetition, and the duration of being in a place.

In this context, The Line Takes Time asks whether certain areas in Weimar - such as the campus, cultural spaces, transitional zones, or social gathering points - produce their own temporal rhythms and boundaries. Do people, for example a student, simply pass through these areas, or do they spend time there and form a relation with them? Rather than producing an analytical city map, the project investigates these questions by translating walking and duration into a line-based notation.

Method

The project uses walking as a method of artistic research. Walks across different areas, passages, and thresholds in Weimar are recorded through GPS. The collected data includes position, speed, rhythm, and time spent.

Line Notation

The GPS trace is not used as a conventional map. Instead, it is translated into a line-based notation:

• passing through becomes a thin line
• slowing down becomes a heavier line
• staying becomes density
• repeated presence becomes accumulation
• thresholds create changes in the behavior of the line

[Possible] Installation

The project may result in a series of walking plots, drawings, video plots, or a line-based installation. These outputs translate walking data into visual patterns of movement, duration, staying, and spatial relation.

References

1. Kandinsky
2. Sol LeWitt
3. Manfred Mohr
4. Richard Long
5. George K. Francis - A Topological Picturebook, 1987
6. Numberphile - An Unexpected Twist on Möbius Strips [1]
7. Dan Graham - Classic and Recent Installations/Pavilions 1974-2008 [2]
8. Branko Grunbaum - Tilings and Patterns: Second Edition