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‘It's Six Minutes to Five Somewhere’





Through objects we can extend our thoughts, knowledge and body.

Current technology like the smartphone creates an opportunity for us to extend ourselves across the globe in space and time. I can be present in different places at different times simultaneously, being disembodied. In this way, we, but also our traditions, language and digital representations of objects, are in a constant flux traveling to different places. Through contemporary technology like video calling and text messaging, traditions, language, and objects can exist in multiple places at the same time.

I can be present in Amsterdam and Curaçao at the same time by video calling my father at 18:00 in Amsterdam, while where he lives it is 12:00 in the afternoon. I find comfort in connecting with family and seeing ‘my other home’ on a different continent. Sky, water, and trees present on different continents connecting us across the globe. The building blocks of life are viewable either through the help of the internet or out of my own window.

With the idea of care and comfort being a basic component of being, my goal is to set the individual experience in a larger communal context and demonstrate the connection between common objects, experiences, place and time.

‘It’s Six Minutes to Five Somewhere’ consists in various forms. The first is a video correspondence between myself and my father Clenson Franca living in the Caribbean. The videos were both taken with a smartphone on a Thursday afternoon; one in the Netherlands and the other in Curaçao, combined with a reading of my own text. The second is a series of paintings in oil pastel on paper. The photographs were taken during a flight to Curaçao, on the island itself and in my current residence in the Netherlands. Finally, I present a Google Docs correspondence with writer/curator, Delany Boutkan, on social artefacts, digital intimacy and collectivity, ‘disembodied’ forms of togetherness online, and the notion of touching someone without touching in the times of the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath.










Part 1 - A Video Correspondence With My Father







Headphones recommended.


A video correspondence between myself and my father Clenson Franca living in the Caribbean. The videos were both taken with a smartphone on a Thursday afternoon; one in the Netherlands and the other in Curaçao.


Video
2’38”
2020







Part 2


C-Type
30 x 40 cm
2020







(1)
Oil pastel on giclée
148 x 112.5 cm
2020







Close Up - ‘It's Six Minutes to Five Somewhere’ - Part 2 (1)











(2)
Oil pastel on giclée
148 x 112.5 cm
2020







Close Up - ‘It's Six Minutes to Five Somewhere’ - Part 2 (2)










(3)
Oil pastel on giclée
148 x 112.5 cm
2020





Close Up - ‘It's Six Minutes to Five Somewhere’ - Part 2 (3)












Installation view: Degree show class of 2020, Royal College of Art, London

Image credits: photo by KitMapper, 2022










Installation view:  RCA Graduation Show at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London 

Image credits: photo by Teresa Arêde, 2020











Installation view: London Grads Now at Saatchi Gallery, London
 
Image credits: photo by Constanza Valderrama, 2020









Part 3 - A Google Docs correspondence with Delany Boutkan






As part of my graduation project for the MA Print at the Royal College of Art in London (UK), I started a Google docs correspondence between myself and Design Curator/Writer Delany Boutkan. With a common interest in circulating digital cultures myself and Delany decided to start a conversation on social artefacts, digital intimacy and collectivity, 'disembodied' forms of togetherness online and touching someone without touching in times of the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath.

Text/Video
Word count 4062 / 5’46”
2020

In Collaboration with:

Delany Boutkan: Design Curator and Writer