Zhōuwéi Network
“Scent of Time”

screening from 13.05.2022 to 13.06.2022

 
CONCEPT & DEVELOPMENT: Liminal Vision (Victor Evink & Emilia Tapprest) | DIRECTED, FILMED AND EDITED BY Emilia Tapprest | PERFORMERS | Polina Hordiievska, Andrei Iovcev, Dayana Mankovskaya | CHOREOGRAPHY Dayana Mankovskaya, Polina Hordiievska | INCENSE CLOCK DESIGN Camilo Garcia A. | COSTUME Dasha Golova | ADDITIONAL PROP DESIGN Ursula Alusru | DRONE Konstantinos Voniatis, Aimal Hakimi | MUSIC Tarawangsawelas, David J. Adan (Doppelgänger), Darya Permyakova (Baby D), Moritz Haas (Europa), Bartolome Koyil | VOICE OVERS Andrei Iovcev, Alyona Hordiievska, Oksana Kim (iVoiceU) | PRODUCTION SUPPORT Alyona Hordiievska, Andrei Iovcev

This work is part of Liminal Vision’s long-term research umbrella Zhōuwéi Network, introduced with the screening of “Embodied Ambitopias” (learn more about it here).

“Scent of Time” takes its name from a book by Byung-Chul Han with the same title. In a series of essays, the philosopher contrasts East-Asian incense-based time-keeping methods with the Western clock to re-value contemplative time against the pressure of being consumed by the concept of work. The film explores ways to broaden his approach, in order to create a liminal space of reflection - taking distance not only from work under contemporary capitalism, but from any kind of value paradigm that has the power to consume us.

The visual narration of the story is centered around an “incense clock”, an ancient time-keeping method based on burning powdered incense along a pre-measured path, with each stencil representing a different amount of time. 

The film depicts a coming-of-age story of Vlada, a young girl who is grappling with different ideological influences growing up in the mid-2020s. The narrative takes place partly in the symbolic space - a liminal realm between her subconscious and reflective consciousness, in which her different experiences and dilemmas are expressed from an embodied perspective through  dance. The choreography of the symbolic space  is staged on a large 5x5-meter game board, which depicts a map of different mindsets that Vlada navigates through. Its shape coincides with the centerpiece of the work, a slow-burning incense clock which reflects her journey in time, and which, like the game board, is used as a recurring motif in the storytelling.