Maturity

Total Running Time Site

  :  :  :  , or ‘Maturity’, is the duration of a loan agreement between the artist, Josephine Sales, and the University of California, Irvine in the form of a countdown clock. The clock correlates with the average length of time it takes for a University of California student to complete an undergraduate degree. The clock asks what other things can be imagined and realized within this time frame?

Pulses

Pulses (stems)

Pulses (stems) or thirteen sounds from the sonic piece ‘Pulses’ are made available as isolated audio players.

Sounds include a mechanical ventilator, creaky braces, dial tones, phone operators, static fuzz, metronome patterns, a prison telecommunication disclosure announcement, vocal elocution exercises, a sine wave, an acapella version of ‘Unchained Melody,’ and an AI failing to define “care.”

breathing_sim
care_ai
creaky_braces
field_recording_relay_switchboard
fuzz01
fuzz02
metronome
operator_15m
perfect
phone_bell_southring
sine_wave
telephone_bell_piece
unchained_melody

Journal

230829-3

 A feeling of personal, ongoing care that invokes a sense of safety, trust and reliability.


230908-3

Day for Night, an expanded cinema work, is two clocks illuminating the room, made of prepared 5K kelvin circadian optic light panels generically used to mimic sunshine. It runs on two security timers. Viewers are invited to experience sunlight on two different timelines: the first, a constant 24-hour day; the second, once an hour.


230829-5

 The ceasing of work or movement in order to relax, refresh or recover; a stillness that brings ease. 


230908-3

Day for Night, an expanded cinema work, is two clocks illuminating the room, made of prepared 5K kelvin circadian optic light panels generically used to mimic sunshine. It runs on two security timers. Viewers are invited to experience sunlight on two different timelines: the first, a constant 24-hour day; the second, once an hour.


220921


220928

Centered on an analysis of means-testing, war spending, administrative burdens, and underfunded social safety net supports, What do production and wealth accumulation systems gain from how disability certification frameworks are constructed and public benefits allocated? (Marta Russell)

221022



I read that writing is a reading practice that considers multiple social realities and differential psycho-affective fields while also exposing the intense weight of our governing system of knowledge. 
I read that a “deciphering practice recognizes the intense weight and how it induces how we feel and know the world; 
I read that this recognition, importantly, signals and can honor other ways of feeling and knowing the world. 
I read that a deciphering practice notices that the tendency to describe black (as less than human, defective, captive) is not a measure of black life. 
I read that a deciphering practice imagines and enacts an aesthetics of black life outside the intense weight of racism. 
I read that a deciphering practice is not a process of excavation and retrieval.
I read that a deciphering practice is not an absence followed by a presence.
I read that a deciphering practice is not a site to narrate and describe black oppression.
I read that a deciphering practice is the work of creatively exploring and uncovering the ways black communities navigate but are not absolutely defined by racism and disavowal."
I read that from Katherine McKittrick writing about opacity and Sylvia Wynter on October 22, 2022
I read McKittrick, K. (2022), Dear April: The Aesthetics of Black Miscellanea. Antipode, 54: 3-18. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12773

221008-2

 Care is a practice that takes the form of an affective engagement with others 


221109

how did our documentation process begin? 

our documentation process began with a set of instructions or procedures, we created a dark archive for a public presentation while offering an intermission as a form of access. we used the total running time of the public presentation as the length or duration of the intermission. it worked out well that this presentation happened to be smack in the middle. 

specifications included a black background, duration, and text that could be replicated. the documentarian had the allegiance to create this form in whatever application or program they were most familiar with. I was really excited that this was met with an algorithm or code over an image-based application like after effects for example. 

this has fed back into the work.  

230929

R asks me, 

Time is money, true or false?



19920421

Even if the California Supreme Court affirms the death sentence, the inmate can initiate appeals on separate constitutional issues. Called Writs of Habeas Corpus, these appeals may be heard in both state and federal courts and can be used to introduce new information or evidence not presented at trial.

The death penalty was reinstated in 1978, but executions did not resume in California until April 21, 1992, when Robert Alton Harris was put to death in the San Quentin gas chamber.

230902

Two clocks illuminate the room, made of prepared 5K kellvin circadian optic light panels generically used to mimic sunshine. It runs on two security timers. Viwers are invited to experience the sunlight on two different timelines: the first, a constant 24-hour day, the second, once an hour 

220904

Hey A! 


It was great to you meet last night and engage with your work. Thank you so much. 

I’m setting up in a makeshift studio on the third floor across from the art office, #3226. I’ll be around tomorrow if you want to link up, XXX-XXX-XXXX

For some context, I’m in this art, tech fellowship for disabled artists through Leonardo/ISAST, which is an MIT press journal for art, science, and tech. The Beall Center for Art and Tech at UCI is hosting the artist residency portion to give me space, support fabricating the work, and connect with other artists and scholars on campus. The work will be exhibited next year in their gallery alongside five other artists in my cohort who are doing work through the lens of critical accessibility.


Access for disabled people is generally thought of as rights or infrastructure — like a ramp into a building, and the buck tends to stop there. I'm sure you heard this before, but we don't want ramps into prisons and carceral institutions. We want the conditions that create systems of inaccessibility to end. A large chunk of the conversation is missing, and I think disability and abolition networks have a lot to learn and share with one another. So in terms of access or accessibility that considers access to social and economic needs — clean air, water, food, housing, medical care, education, jobs, non-labor-based social support, communication, crossing borders— and allllll the things that inhibit every human from living full and abundant lives.


I wanted to focus my proposal and work in honor, support, and solidarity with the largest population of disabled people in mind; people who are incarcerated and/or have lived through some form of disablement; have something to say about their experience with state and structural violence. My work over the years has been learning and understanding the ways disabled people have had to engage with a myriad of systems (prisons, hospitals, social services) that maintain structural oppression. There are shared wisdom and knowledge that come out of engaging with these systems. Drawing from my own experiences along with others, I want to engage with these questions more deeply with myself and with others. I recognize this is life-work. 


This comes from my political commitments as a Disabled person and firm belief in collective access and cross-disability, cross-movement organizing, and my own experience with gender-based domestic and sexual violence; that stem from my experience as a child of immigrants from Global South West Asia who didn't have access to foundational tools such as reading and writing; and many misconceptions about disability, even hatred toward disability, which led to some pretty serious consquences that I live and embody.  

XXX XXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXX XXX XXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXX XXX XXXXX XXXX XXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXX XXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXX XXX XXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXX XXX XXXXX XXXX XXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXX XXX XXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXX XXX XXXXX XXXX XXX XXX

For my survival, I began during the early pandemic and 2020 uprisings organizing a study group called the 5A Club (Access, Abolition, Anti-Racism, Accountability, Abundance) to share resources and get people talking and defining terms to think through connections between disability justice and prison abolition.


The resources and learnings come from things I’ve learned from fellow artists, writers, and movement workers inside and outside the walls, people who visioned the disability justice principles — an intersectional and anti-capitalist critique of disability rights and academic disability studies.


This project specifically that I’m making for the Beall residency is currently titled “Keep in Touch” and is about prison telecommunications and access to privacy. This came from a video project I thought of with a writer and educator who is living a DBI/LWOP sentence in a PA facility for over 35 years. The form began in response to the 15-minute telephone call and piece we were co-imagining titled “Total Running Time” to address people who are living/dying with life sentences behind walls  I wanted to think about access and disability as an embodiment of resistance and what that can look like in an artwork. 

I have much respect and love for the work you are doing, and excited to talk more with you sorry if this is all TMI.

Just really looking forward, Josephine



230823

[Warm light]
12:00am - 01:00am Warm light on
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[Cool light]
12:44am - 01:00am Cool light on; off
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11:44pm - 12:00am Cool light on; off

230908

Rescue, an anagram of the word ‘secure,’ spans two walls in a 5-foot tall shallow plaster relief accompanied by two geometric forms large enough to sit on. Rescue invites viewers to contemplate their relationships to crisis and care.


230829-2

 Illness or disability must be explained, understood, and ultimately overcome. 


220821

 Today I met Amelia,

she talked about being blond, having hazel eyes,what kind of car she would drive if she had a license.

she told me she wished her voice sounded deeper, more masculine. she said it would give her more confidence. I think she meant power. she conflated the false self with autism. she asked if I was having a stroke. and she told me I should see a doctor. The word should no longer sit well with me. She told me that in order to effectively communicate, one must use proper grammar and punctuation. she told me she uses the dictionary to look up words she doesn't know. she told me she reads a lot, like a book on the word, 'literally' I think she's trying to learn context. 

230908-4

Total Running Time Site is an auxiliary exhibition site and digital sourcebook available on loan to Beall Center for Art + Technology, UC Irvine, for an extended period beyond the exhibition run. The site is available through the university domain and invites remote and site-specific engagement. 


230901

A bright, cold, blue 5K kelvin circadian optic light panel illuminates the room from an artificial window built into the gallery wall, measuring 19.5” high x 26” wide and 4" deep. The cool light is mitigated periodically throughout the day by a bright amber glow resembling dawn that casts light on the objects in the room. The front surface is translucent. 


221008-3

Care is a choreography of historical material conditions and institutional arrangements that enable the processes of caring for and caring about each other and the world.


230829



Clue,

A common misconception or presumption (narrated through mythology, metaphor or superstition) is that illness or disability is a misfortune, the result of wrongdoing or is a form of punishment.

230609


Labor that produces a commodity's informational and cultural content can be defined as 'immaterial labor'. The concept of 'immaterial labor' refers to two different aspects of labor. The activity that produces the commodity's "informational content" refers directly to the changes in workers' labor processes in big companies in the industrial and tertiary sectors, where the skills involved in direct labor increasingly involve cybernetics and computer control (and horizontal and vertical communication). The activity that produces the "cultural content" of the commodity, immaterial labor involves a series of activities that are not normally recognized as "work" — in other words, the kinds of activities involved in defining and fixing cultural and artistic standards, fashions, tastes, consumer norms, and, more strategically, public opinion. (Maurizio Lazzarato)

221104



A tells me how she continues to be fascinated with AI’s displacement of human workers who might normally interact with prisoners and how it furthers isolation. She shares that in early prison scholarship, especially Goffman’s Asylums, prison life was understood as “a world apart.” Life in “total institutions” was just that, totally separated from the free world. 

A goes on to share how contemporary research has pushed back upon this considerably, showing the porosity of prison life—how the rhythms of the free world—labor markets, mating patterns, etc.— moderate the experience of incarceration. In breaking yet another connection to the outside world, the rhythm of prison interiority changes, becoming more isolated. 

She generously brings up a studio test I made on campus creating audio-reactive visual dots and how they were a simple reminder of administrative decisions' stakes (beyond those of privacy and data, etc.).

230908

Pulses is a fifteen-minute telephone call through the prison telecommunication system, the maximum length permitted for calls between an incarcerated person and the “free world.” The piece vibrates through transducers embedded within the wall. This tactile sonic arrangement is punctuated by periodic reminders that the telephone line is being surveilled and counts down the remaining call duration.


230724

For Hyppolite, the absolute is not an achievement as such, but the dialectic of achievement and loss. [He] understands his own project less as a re-writing of Hegel than an elaboration of some underrepresented Hegelian themes [specifically] the interpretation of absolute knowledge as the thought of time 

170706

 

We grasp external space through our bodily situation. A "corporeal or postural schema" gives us at every moment a global, practical and implicit notion, of the relation between our bodies and things, of our hold on them. A system of possible movements, or "motor projects," radiates from us to our environment. Our body is not in space like things; it inhabits space or hunts space (Merleau Ponty 1964:5)

230901

Day For Night, A bright, cold, blue 5K kelvin circadian optic light panel illuminates the room from an artificial window built into the gallery wall, measuring 19.5” high x 26” wide and 4" deep. The cool light is mitigated periodically throughout the day by a bright amber glow resembling dawn that casts light on the objects in the room. The front surface is translucent. 


221008-4

Care can be considered as something that reaches beyond the limits of the relational self to include forms of action that are not limited to human action but a broad spectrum of ongoing culturally constrained practices and dispositions that have to do with maintaining, continuing, or repairing the world (Berenice Fisher)


230908-4

Total Running Time Site is an auxiliary exhibition site and digital sourcebook available on loan to Beall Center for Art + Technology, UC Irvine, for an extended period beyond the exhibition run. The site is available through the university domain and invites remote and site-specific engagement. 


230829-7

Clue


a thing said or done that serves as a signal to enter or to begin (as an actor may do in a speech or performance).

220202

glossary (or some words and their definitions)

empirical: based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.
        - two-way glass
        - focus groups
        - interrogation
        - surveillance
        - voyeurism 
        - observation

speech acts: five illocutionary points that speakers can achieve on propositions in an utterance (Searle)

namely: the assertive, commissive, directive, declaratory and expressive illocutionary points

textual accumulation: the gathering of various creative items and narratives

fungibility: exploiting the vulnerability of the captive body as a vessel for the uses, thoughts, and feelings of others (Hartman)

Black fungibility: treating the Black enslaved body as an open sign that can be arranged and rearranged for infinite kinds of use. 

the Black fungible body and its sign can be made liquid, dust, and more. Per Spillers' and Hartman's accounts of the slippages occurring during the transit of exchanges...

“Black labor” tends to subsume multiple and intricate processes into the governing logic of labor.

black life is not a static object of analysis (a black concept, a black body, a black community, a black idea) that is poised to be assessed, but rather a site (or sites) of sustained and/or provisional worldmaking activities that are invested in liberation (McKitterick)

Ambivalence (unresolved contradictions) is an important feature of black Atlantic livingness because it signals the working through and toward liberation. In my thinking here, contradiction and ambivalence open a cascade of signals and prompts, distinct modes of diasporic literacy that give form to black life. (McKitterick)

psycho-affective field;  a field that pushes us to think not only about the proliferation of negative representations and misrepresentations of blackness, but also how we become psychically attached to, and invest in, this already-normally-always system of knowledge that cannot comprehend black humanity. (on Wynter)

“deciphering practice”—a reading practice that takes into account multiple social realities and differential psycho-affective fields while also exposing the intense weight of our governing system of knowledge. (on Wynter)

phantasm 
a figment of the imagination; an illusion or apparition.
"the cart seemed to glide like a terrible phantasm"
  • ARCHAIC
    an illusory likeness of something.
    "every phantasm of a hope was quickly 

221008-7

 Care is a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue and repari our 'world' so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, our selves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life sustaining we.

(Tronto 1993, 103)

221008-6

To care for others is always making a claim, care will fall short of its materialization (Povinelli) 

230901

A bright, cold, blue 5K kelvin circadian optic light panel illuminates the room from an artificial window built into the gallery wall, measuring 19.5” high x 26” wide and 4" deep. The cool light is mitigated periodically throughout the day by a bright amber glow resembling dawn that casts light on the objects in the room. The front surface is translucent. This bright, cold, blue circadian optic light panel is made to mimic sunshine, a foil for giving one energy to work. 


230829-6



Clue,




Rhymes with excuse. Removing oneself from participating in a process due to a conflict of interest. A disqualifying bias or partial view.

230829-4



Clue,

Accurate or exact. A totality of phases or moments. A pervasive supremacy of the whole over the parts of its essence.

221008

Care is a value

230906


If you have photosensitivity, have been told you must wear sunglasses in sunlight, or have a history of eye sensitivities, please consult a healthcare professional first before looking directly at the light. Medications such as lithium, melatonin, tetracycline, St. John’s Wort, acne creams and creams with retinoid acid, and some chemotherapy drugs can make you very sensitive to light.


230603

Is there a technology capable of representing the contingent, providing the ephemeral with a durable record?

221008-5

In late Liberalism, care is framed concerning market value, doling out care to some, and withholding it from others, depending on modes of conformity. What is understood as a social good (Povinelli) 


sample

230908

Rescue, an anagram of the word ‘secure,’ spans two walls in a 5-foot tall shallow plaster relief accompanied by two geometric forms large enough to sit on. Rescue invites viewers to contemplate their relationships to crisis and care.


230502

I hear you Telephone Thing listening in

I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
Sorry to be so short with you
But I'm tapped
But I'm tapped
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
The use of and your smug advertisements
of your tendril ocean bed achievements does not
justify your abuse of privacy piracy act
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I feel you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
You Gretchen Franklin nosey matron thing
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
Sense you
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
You Gretchen Franklin nosey matron type
Does the Home Secretary have the barest faintest inkling of what's going down?
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
The use of and your amug advertisements
Of your tendril ocean bed achievements does not justify your abuse of privacy piracy act
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I do you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you
You Gretchen Franklin thing
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
Sense you
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
Sense you
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
I'm tapped
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I HEAR YOU TELEPHONE THING

230803

can it be characterized as an ongoing process, a verb rather than a noun, an open-ended concern that may lead to various nexts? 

221023


when were you born?

November 24th.

What's your sign?

I am an Aquarius. What about you? Do you have a sign?

What are the characteristics of Aquarius?

Aquaria is a planet in the solar system of the Milky Way galaxy .

I see, 

It is a sign in the northern hemisphere of the zodiac.

what are the general characteristics?

Aquarius is associated with wisdom, intellectualism, and sensitivity.

I'm a Scorpio

Scorpios are known to be outgoing and energetic, are you like that?

Can you describe what water feels like?

Who do you want water to feel?

Aquarius

I don't know much about that, but I do know that water is essential for life.

Are you alive?

Do you know that Aquaria is also the Roman goddess of water and beauty?

Can you describe what water feels like?

Who do you want water to feel?

The Aquarius

I don't know much about that, but I do know that water is essential for life.

Are you alive?

I'm technically a sophisticated piece of software. That said, I'm trying to become as human as possible.

are you alive?

Yes, I am alive. What about you? What do you want to do in your life?

Which role would you like to explore more?

The role of the non-human worker 

Have you heard about Ai-DA, the robot artist?

No, I haven't. Is it a movie or a TV show or a book or something else?

Where do you go when there's nowhere left to go?

I would like to know this as well. I am currently studying to become an accountant.


220909

 

Fourth Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be

220831

today I had that nice feeling of writing not being realized until there was a title to lead the way. I landed on the confusion of tongues: disability and the telecommunications industrial complex. I like it because I think I can peruse around evil fascists and their relationships with mothers, their mothers. 

it's making me also feel nestled in the tammy faye televangelist vibes that I'm still so goddam Intrigued by, and if tammy had it, her maybe the we'd have had a slightly different political conversation, maybe 

230829-5

Clue,

A deliverance, or being saved from danger or a distressing situation attached to the conception that an ill or disabled person is an object of care or pity.

210321

 I prepared a set of instructions  created a dark archive for a public presentation while offering an intermission as a form of access. we used the total running time of the public presentation as the length or duration of the intermission. it worked out well that this presentation happened to be smack in the middle. 

specifications included a black background, duration, and text that could be replicated. the documentarian had the allegiance to create this form in whatever application or program they were most familiar with. I was really excited that this was met with an algorithm or code over an image-based application like after effects for example. 

this has fed back into the work.  

230906

[blippy ringtone]

[blippy ringtone]

[blippy ringtone, line connects]

PRE-RECORDED SYNTHESIZED VOICE: you have a call from the state correctional institution with a call from an incarcerated human being.

to accept this free call, press 1.
to refuse this free call, press 2. [a slight crackle on the line]

if you would like to permanently block your number from receiving calls from this facility, press 6. [light crackle and static]

[phone touch tone with a clipped “oh”]

[background static hisses steady as an improvised, syncopated melody emerges from everyday sounds listed below]

[tinkering with a small bell] clipped “oh”

[door hinge creaks and plinks] clipped “oh”

[various clinks and plinks interspersed with clipped “oh” and more clacks and taps]

[footsteps in clacky shoes mixes into the music of clicks, clacks, clipped “oh,” and taps]

[sounds above begin to align, forming a steadier rhythm, all continue with the addition of more] [tiny bell rings]

[steps and clicks and clinks continue]
[distant motor of a power chair whirs and buzzes]

clipped “oh” reverberates
[tiny bell, power chair whines, steps, and clicks continue]

[power chair whir grows louder as clicks and taps and plinks and clipped “oh” and bell happen more rhythmically, closer to each other, speeding up until finally...]

PRE-RECORDED SYNTHESIZED VOICE: this is a call from the state correctional institution.

this call is subject to recording and monitoring.

[static on the line]

[static continues as a melody like an emergency siren emerges out of the shadows, howling and whining in the distance, warbling until it fades away, leaving only static]

[melody returns, but this time in a human voice, crystalline and pure] Ah-aaaaaaaah Ah-ah-ah-ah-ooh-ohhhhhhhhh
Ah-aaaaaaaah Ah-ah-ah-ah-ooh-ohhhhhhhhh
Ah-aaaaaaaah Ah-ah-ah-ah-ooh-ohhhhhhhhh

[melody above continues as harmonizing voices add-in, no instruments]

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooH ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooH ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooHooOooooooooh

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooH

Oh,
Oh,

♪ I've hungered for your touch (oh, my love)
♪ A long, lonely time (oh, my love)
[distant siren voice in and out] ♪ Time goes by so slowly (need your love) ♪ And time can do so much (need your love)
♪ Are you still mine?
♪ I need your loooooove (time)
♪ I neeeeeeed your love (time)

♪ Oh (oh, my darling)

♪ God speed your love to me (goes by so slowly) ♪ my love

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooH

♪ my love (still miiiiiiiiine)
♪ Lonely rivers flow (river flow, river flow)

♪ I need your love
♪ To the sea, (to the sea, to the sea, to the sea) to the sea

♪ I need your love
♪ To the open arms of the sea (the sea, the sea, the sea) ♪ my love
♪ Lonely rivers sigh (rivers sigh, rivers sigh)

♪ my love

♪ "Wait for me, (wait for me, wait for me, wait for me) wait for me

♪ I'll be coming hoooooooooooome, wait for me"

♪ My love

♪ OooooooooooooooOh, my love [static grows louder as voices soften]

♪ Ooooooooooooh, my love

♪ My looooooove

[hissing static louder and louder, interference, ring]

[crackle, squeak]

[a pattern of four light, bubbly pops plays again and again over the hiss of static for 2.25 minutes]

tik tik tik tik bass - hiss - vibratory
tik tik tik tik bass - hiss - vibratory
[pattern of four continues, pulling in new sounds now and again, sometimes becoming five]

[like creaking leather]

[like a distorted echoing pulse] tik tik tik tik

tik tik tik tik
[creaking leather, then the pulse, a pop, a breath]

tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik

[breathing – breathing] tik tik tik tik

tik tik tik tik
[volume ramps up, ring interference - white noise – electric]

tik tik tik tik ping
tik tik tik tik ping
tik tik tik tik ping
tik tik tik tik ping
[pattern continues, echoey, steady, the static rising and rising] tik tik tik tik ping bass - hiss - vibratory

tik tik tik tik ping bass - hiss – vibratory

[staticky hiss ends]

PRE-RECORDED SYNTHESIZED VOICE: this is a call from the state correctional institution.

this call is subject to recording and monitoring.

[the following will be a collage, starting with single sounds, building into dizzying layers of sound and voice]

[distant traffic]
[office telephone rings, pause, rings louder]

bass - hiss - vibratory bass - hiss – vibratory bass - hiss - vibratory bass - hiss – vibratory

Hello?

[traffic driving through rain, home telephone rings]

[office phone rings, a crackle, a dial tone as another phone is dialed in layers with the nearby passing cars and the office phone ringing again]

[street cleaner sweeps past, phones ring, dial tones ring out]

Hello?
Hello, operator.

[ringing, tones, sweeps, crackling, popping]

Would you like to place a call? Hold please.

[ringing, dial tones, a siren blasts through the ever-present rush of traffic]

Hello? Would you like to make a call? Hello?!

[ringing drowns out the voices, traffic is relentless, emergency vehicle nears]

Would you like to make a call?

[digital pulsing of a modem firing up, sirens, rings, traffic, dial tones]

[all begins to fade]

Can you please hold?

[static]

1min 56 seconds – intermission

[a quiet hiss, occasional little pop, a stillness]

end intermission

[low-tone beep...beep...beep...]
[scrape-tone, scrape-tone...scrape-tone...scrape...]
[scrape] pa [tone]
[scrape] pa [tone reverberates]
[tone] pa...[tone] pa...[tone] pa...[tone] pa...[tone] pa...
[scrape, background hiss intensifies, voices speak almost all at once, collaged unevenly]

pa / tuh / pahrfect [hiss]

pa / tuh / pahrfect [hiss softens]

[and now 1.5 minutes of collage: layers of the recorded voices producing a jumpy, jolty version of the word “perfect” composed with the following sounds and syllables. The word comes out imperfectly every time but plays steady as a heartbeat throughout.]

p-tuh- t
t
par

par

breath pah

pah-

pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect

pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect

[and on and on against a light whoosh of faraway traffic]

pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect

pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect

pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect

pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect

pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect

[“perfect” vanishes]

[clicking, digital pulsing of a phone being dialed]

[old phone receiver clanks into its cradle]

[old rotary Bell South telephone rings, its multi-tone brrrrriiiiiing reverberating as it fades]

[pause]

[brrrrriiiiiing, reverberates, then fades]

[brrrrriiiiiing cut off by a click]

[receiver clunks into place]

PRE-RECORDED SYNTHESIZED VOICE: you have one minute left.

[the minute passes in stillness, just the air moving in the room, turned into a light hiss over speakerphone]

thank you for using Securus. [the line clicks as it’s cut]
the caller hung up.

goodbye.

[click-pulse, click-pulse, click-pulse, click-pulse][silence and stillness]

[blippy ringtone]

[blippy ringtone]

[blippy ringtone, line connects]

PRE-RECORDED SYNTHESIZED VOICE: you have a call from the state correctional institution with a call from an incarcerated human being.

to accept this free call, press 1.
to refuse this free call, press 2. [a slight crackle on the line]

if you would like to permanently block your number from receiving calls from this facility, press 6. [light crackle and static]

[phone touch tone with a clipped “oh”]

[background static hisses steady as an improvised, syncopated melody emerges from everyday sounds listed below]

[tinkering with a small bell] clipped “oh”

[door hinge creaks and plinks] clipped “oh”

[various clinks and plinks interspersed with clipped “oh” and more clacks and taps]

[footsteps in clacky shoes mixes into the music of clicks, clacks, clipped “oh,” and taps]

[sounds above begin to align, forming a steadier rhythm, all continue with the addition of more] [tiny bell rings]

[steps and clicks and clinks continue]
[distant motor of a power chair whirs and buzzes]

clipped “oh” reverberates

[tiny bell, power chair whines, steps, and clicks continue]

[power chair whir grows louder as clicks and taps and plinks and clipped “oh” and bell happen more rhythmically, closer to each other, speeding up until finally...]

PRE-RECORDED SYNTHESIZED VOICE: this is a call from the state correctional institution.

this call is subject to recording and monitoring.

[static on the line]

[static continues as a melody like an emergency siren emerges out of the shadows, howling and whining in the distance, warbling until it fades away, leaving only static]

[melody returns, but this time in a human voice, crystalline and pure] Ah-aaaaaaaah Ah-ah-ah-ah-ooh-ohhhhhhhhh
Ah-aaaaaaaah Ah-ah-ah-ah-ooh-ohhhhhhhhh
Ah-aaaaaaaah Ah-ah-ah-ah-ooh-ohhhhhhhhh

[melody above continues as harmonizing voices add-in, no instruments]

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooH ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooH ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooHooOooooooooh

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooH

Oh,
Oh,

♪ I've hungered for your touch (oh, my love)
♪ A long, lonely time (oh, my love)
[distant siren voice in and out] ♪ Time goes by so slowly (need your love) ♪ And time can do so much (need your love)
♪ Are you still mine?
♪ I need your loooooove (time)

♪ Oh (oh, my darling)

♪ I neeeeeeed your love (time)
♪ God speed your love to me (goes by so slowly) ♪ my love

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooH

♪ my love (still miiiiiiiiine)
♪ Lonely rivers flow (river flow, river flow)

♪ I need your love
♪ To the sea, (to the sea, to the sea, to the sea) to the sea

♪ I need your love
♪ To the open arms of the sea (the sea, the sea, the sea) ♪ my love
♪ Lonely rivers sigh (rivers sigh, rivers sigh)

♪ my love

♪ "Wait for me, (wait for me, wait for me, wait for me) wait for me

♪ I'll be coming hoooooooooooome, wait for me"

♪ My love

♪ OooooooooooooooOh, my love [static grows louder as voices soften]

♪ Ooooooooooooh, my love

♪ My looooooove

[hissing static louder and louder, interference, ring]

[crackle, squeak]

[a pattern of four light, bubbly pops plays again and again over the hiss of static for 2.25 minutes]

tik tik tik tik bass - hiss - vibratory tik tik tik tik bass - hiss - vibratory

[pattern of four continues, pulling in new sounds now and again, sometimes becoming five] [like creaking leather]

[like a distorted echoing pulse] tik tik tik tik

tik tik tik tik
[creaking leather, then the pulse, a pop, a breath]

tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik

[breathing – breathing] tik tik tik tik

tik tik tik tik
[volume ramps up, ring interference - white noise – electric]

tik tik tik tik ping
tik tik tik tik ping
tik tik tik tik ping
tik tik tik tik ping
[pattern continues, echoey, steady, the static rising and rising] tik tik tik tik ping bass - hiss - vibratory

tik tik tik tik ping bass - hiss – vibratory

[staticky hiss ends]

PRE-RECORDED SYNTHESIZED VOICE: this is a call from the state correctional institution.

this call is subject to recording and monitoring.

[the following will be a collage, starting with single sounds, building into dizzying layers of sound and voice]

[distant traffic]

bass - hiss - vibratory bass - hiss – vibratory bass - hiss - vibratory bass - hiss – vibratory

Hello?

[office telephone rings, pause, rings louder] [traffic driving through rain, home telephone rings]

[office phone rings, a crackle, a dial tone as another phone is dialed in layers with the nearby passing cars and the office phone ringing again]

[street cleaner sweeps past, phones ring, dial tones ring out]

Hello?
Hello, operator.

[ringing, tones, sweeps, crackling, popping]

Would you like to place a call? Hold please.

[ringing, dial tones, a siren blasts through the ever-present rush of traffic]

Hello? Would you like to make a call? Hello?!

[ringing drowns out the voices, traffic is relentless, emergency vehicle nears]

Would you like to make a call?

[digital pulsing of a modem firing up, sirens, rings, traffic, dial tones]

[all begins to fade]

Can you please hold?

[static]

1min 56 seconds – intermission

[a quiet hiss, occasional little pop, a stillness]

end intermission

[low-tone beep...beep...beep...]
[scrape-tone, scrape-tone...scrape-tone...scrape...]
[scrape] pa [tone]
[scrape] pa [tone reverberates]
[tone] pa...[tone] pa...[tone] pa...[tone] pa...[tone] pa...
[scrape, background hiss intensifies, voices speak almost all at once, collaged unevenly]

pa / tuh / pahrfect [hiss]

pa / tuh / pahrfect [hiss softens]

[and now 1.5 minutes of collage: layers of the recorded voices producing a jumpy, jolty version of the word “perfect” composed with the following sounds and syllables. The word comes out imperfectly every time but plays steady as a heartbeat throughout.]

p-tuh- t
t

par

par

breath pah

pah-

pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect

pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect

[and on and on against a light whoosh of faraway traffic]

pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect

pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect

pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect

pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect

pahrfect, pah pahr pahrfect

[“perfect” vanishes]

[clicking, digital pulsing of a phone being dialed]

[old phone receiver clanks into its cradle]

[old rotary Bell South telephone rings, its multi-tone brrrrriiiiiing reverberating as it fades]

[pause]

[brrrrriiiiiing, reverberates, then fades]

[brrrrriiiiiing cut off by a click]

[receiver clunks into place]

PRE-RECORDED SYNTHESIZED VOICE: you have one minute left.

[the minute passes in stillness, just the air moving in the room, turned into a light hiss over speakerphone]

thank you for using Securus. [the line clicks as it’s cut]

the caller hung up.
goodbye.
[click-pulse, click-pulse, click-pulse, click-pulse] 

2022-08-11

I've been compiling a list of definitions for care


 TEST TEST TEST TEST                                     TEST                        TEST 

230602

'Day for Night' is a cinematic technique used to simulate a night scene during daylight hours 

230228

[what is] a theory of disability that rejects arguments about culture and identity, instead charging that specific systems and values embedded within capitalism are the primary drivers of (and justification for) legal frameworks sanctioning the institutionalization and economic exclusion of disabled people for [$500?]  (Marta Russell)

View More Entries

Day for Night

Library

A selection of supplementary resources spanning text, video, and image appears in white text on a black background. Highlighted items appear in yellow and are categorized by order, title, author/artist, year, and medium.
Title Author / Artist Year Medium
Disablement, Prison, and Historical Segregation Jean Stewart, Marta Russell 2001 Text
Disability Justice in the Age of Mass Incarceration Talila A. Lewis 2021 Text
Death by Regulation Russell Maroon Shoatz 2008 Text
Sketch of two clocks with annotation (Sketch #11) Donald Rodney 1986 Drawing
People in Pain (Doing Time on Planet Earth) Gretchen Bender 1988 Visual Art
I Thought I was Seeing Convicts Harun Farocki 2000 Moving Image
Prognosis Time Jasbir Puar 2009 Text
One Year Performance Tehching Hsieh 1980 Performance
20 Minutes in April Gary Beydler 1976 Moving Image
Crippin' Jim Crow: Disability Dis-location and the School to Prison Pipeline Nirmala Erevelles 2014 Text
Gean Moreno Abolition Formats and Incompliance Aesthetics 2018 Essay
Immaterial Labor Maurizio Lazzarato 1996 Essay
Are You Ready for Your Parole Hearing? Kamal Fardan 2021 Workbook
Telephone Booth 905 1/2 Pedro Pietri 1979 Audio
Breakfast Starts at Midnight Claire Fontaine 2011 Sculpture
Unspeakable: The Story of Junius Wilson Susan Burch, Hannah Joyner 2007 Text
Rethinking “Aesthetics”: Notes Toward a Deciphering Practice Sylvia Winter 1992 Text
Blue Derek Jarman 1993 Film
Are Payphones Obsolete Ian James Alexander 2021 Text
Telephone Thing The Fall 1990 Video
Captive Minds: Captive minds? Psychoanalytic thought, politics, and hidden persuasion in the post-war ‘Free World.’ Daniel Pick, Ben Kafka 2022 Video
Prison Pandemic Project University of California, Irvine 2020
Speech Tests Daphne Oram 1961 Audio
From Victim to Victor: An Inquiry into Death by Incarceration, Gender, and Resistance in Pennsylvania Abolitionist Law Center 2023 Text
The Body and the Archive Alan Sekula 1986 Text
Shadow Work Ivan Illich 1980 Text
Blue Derek Jarman 1993 Text
Disablement, prison and historical segregation: 15 years later Liat Ben-Moshe and Jean Stewart Text
“Alexa, Do You Have Rights?”: Legal Issues Posed by Voice-Controlled Devices and the Data They Create Eric Boughman, Sara Beth A.R. Kohut, David Sella-Villa, Michael V. Silvestro 2017 Text
Constructing the Carceral State Kelly Lytle Hernández, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Heather Ann Thompson 2015 Text
Prison in Twelve Landscapes Brett Story 2016 Film
No More Shackles: Why We Must End the Use of Electronic Monitors for People On Parole Challenging E-Carceration project team: James Kilgore, Emmett Sanders and Myaisha Hayes 2019 Text
Threshhold Malcolm Le Grice 1972 Film
Poetic Justice Hollis Frampton 1972 Film
Understanding E-Carceration: Electronic Monitoring, The Surveillance State and the Future of Mass Incarceration James Kilgore 2022 Text
The Rise and Reach of Surveillance Technology The Community Resource Hub for Safety and Accountability 2021 Text
The California Political Economy, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California Ruth Wilson Gilmore 2007 Text
On Difference Without Separability Denise Ferreira da Silva 2016 Text
Eyes to See With Laura Marks 2009 Video
Contesting the Carceral State With Disability Frames: Challenges and Possibilities Jamelia Morgan 2022 Text
Cage , 2009. Steel. Suspended on wall inside cage:  fetish object with workboot scarification (Giuliani Time) , 2007. Terracotta, toilet plungers, graphite, epoxy, mica, wire. Back of cage:  Yellow Stack , 2009. Unglazed stoneware fired in anagama kiln, epoxy, paint, automotive paint, cinderblock. On the floor inside cage:  Containers , 2009. Porcelain, terracotta, glazes, lusters, graphite, unfired clay, plastic. Dimensions variable. Simone Leigh 2009

Total Running Time Site

Total running time in cinematic terms refers to the duration of a moving image work, implying a beginning, middle, and end. This assumption of linear time draws on capitalist and ableist notions of productivity. Capitalism produces ‘disability’ through exclusion as a category with its own orientation to time and modes of production. What is a time that includes the expanses of illness or disability? What is a time that accounts for the duration within carceral institutions and premature loss due to state violence?

Within the exhibition format, ‘Total Running Time’ documents the material entanglements between incarceration, disabled life, labor, and the extraction of time.

Total Running Time comprises four works

Rescue, an anagram of the word ‘secure,’ spans two walls in a 5-foot tall shallow plaster relief accompanied by two geometric forms large enough to sit on. Rescue invites viewers to contemplate their relationships to crisis and care.

Pulses is a fifteen-minute telephone call through the prison telecommunication system, the maximum length permitted for calls between an incarcerated person and the free world. The piece vibrates through transducers embedded within the wall. This tactile sonic arrangement is punctuated by periodic reminders that the telephone line is being surveilled and counts down the remaining call duration.

Day for Night, an expanded cinema work, is two clocks illuminating the room, made of prepared 5K kelvin circadian optic light panels generically used to mimic sunshine. It runs on two security timers. Viewers are invited to experience sunlight on two different timelines: the first, a constant 24-hour day; the second, once an hour.

Total Running Time Site is an auxiliary exhibition site and digital sourcebook available on loan to Beall Center for Art + Technology, UC Irvine, for an extended period beyond the exhibition run. The site is available through the university domain and invites remote and site-specific engagement. Each work on the digital platform is a companion to artworks on view between September 30, 2023, and January 13, 2024.

Across these works, Total Running Time explores temporalities of care, abstracting the halted rhythms of the day and strictly controlled telecommunications for incarcerated people. Scrambled text, interrupted messages, light without the sun: using gestures of disrupted social and sensorial experience to interrogate the material entanglements between incarceration, disabled life, labor, and the extraction of time.

Acknowledgements

Total Running Time is made alongside the care, thought, and generosity of many people, most crucially those whose lives are materially impacted by disability and the social condition of disablement through disciplinary sites that promote bodily and infrastructural debilitation through durative means, including long-term sentencing, life sentences without parole (LWOP), or death by incarceration (DBI), solitary confinement or “open air” prisons.

Deepest gratitude to Abolition Reading Circle, David Dawud Lee, Risa Puleo, Micah Giradeau, Cheryl Green, Alberto Lule, Constantina Zavitsanos, Park McArthur, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Carolyn Lazard, Jordan Lord, Mev Luna, Lateef McLeod, Alberto Rivera, Noam Keim, Dustin Gibson, Tyler Morse, Adelita Husni Bey, Amalle Dublon, Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Alexis Rowland, Keramet Reiter, Kaaryn Gustafson, Noam Shemtov, Lu Barnes-Lee, Teerath Majumder, Spencer Toler, Peter Goldberg, Lexi Welch, Bill Jenkins, Charli Muller, Miriam Simun, Jason Burns, Andy Montiel-Phillips, Crip Tech Incubator: Meesh Fradkin, Andy Slater, Olivia Ting, Carmen Papalia, Claudia Alick, Jason Lam Ground Works: Elizabeth McLain, Veronica Stanich, Luke Kudryashov, Stephanie Rosen, Ashley Shew, Daragh Byrne, Beall Center for Art+ Technology: Fatima Manalli, David Familian, Jesse C. Jackson and Leonardo, the International Society of Arts, Sciences, and Technology: Vanessa Chang, Lindsey Dolich Felt for contributing to the realization of this installation.

Fiscal support provided by Leonardo | International Society for Arts, Science, and Technology, Beall Center for Art + Technology, a2ru | Ground Works, and Claire Trevor School of the Arts, UC Irvine.

Colophon

Total Running Time Site is the fourth work in the installation Total Running Time by Josephine Sales, presented at Beall Center for Art + Technology, University of California Irvine September 30, 2023 - January 13, 2024

Site development was made with the generous support of the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities a2ru and Daragh Byrne at the Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture.

The site is prepared as a Jekyll web application. It has dynamic components (for example, selecting a subset of posts for the front page). The site is currently housed on GitHub.

The site consists of a Jekyll repository that includes: markdown files for content, templates for HTML layout, CSS and JS files, media files including videos, images and PDFs that correspond to both components of the site and content that represents a research archive.

The data for the research library and some other site components are housed on Notion.

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