From February 12 to March 6, 2022, Pure Fiction presented an exhibition and performance program at the Kölnischer Kunstverein in Cologne titled Shifting Theater: Sibyl’s Mouths. The starting point was a collective reading of Mary Shelley’s 1826 novel The Last Man, in which the narrator discovers a collection of scribbled oak leaves scattered in a cave outside Naples.

Contributions by Rosa Aiello, Gerry Bibby, Coleman Collins, Ayanna Dozier, Annie Ernaux, Amelia Groom, Michèle Graf & Selina Grüter, Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju, Ellen Yeon Kim, Bitsy Knox, Dan Kwon, Erika Landström, Enad Marouf, Katrin Mayer, Aislinn McNamara, Kamila & Jasmina Metwaly, Luzie Meyer, Vera Palme, Theresa Patzschke, Georgia Sagri, Mahsa Saloor, Elif Saydam, Mark von Schlegell, Simon Speiser, Elaine Tam, C.S. Tolan, Mikhail Wassmer, Anna Zacharoff.

Edited by Susan Gibb and Becket MWN.

Event and Duration is a collection of texts that offer various perspectives on the notions of ‘event and duration’, and suggest ways that time can be thought and measured otherwise. The selection of texts are drawn from the field of performance studies, philosophy, psychoanalysis, science fiction and the visual arts among others, all of which were read in If I Can’t Dance’s reading groups in Amsterdam, São Paulo and Toronto as part of the artistic programme VI: Event and Duration (2015–16).

Contributors: Octavia E. Butler, Paul Chan, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Elizabeth Freeman, Amelia Groom, The Invisible Committee, R.D. Laing, Henri Lefebvre, Jota Mombaça, José Esteban Muñoz, Peter Pál Pelbart, Paul B. Preciado; and artist pages by Becket MWN.

Katja Mater’s series Time is an Arrow, Error entails layers of duration. The process begins with a drawing of half an analogue clockface. The drawing is then photographed in natural light, producing two separate negatives that each capture the image over different extended exposures. Subtle shifts in light lead to variations in colours and, in some cases, the uneven transcription of shadows on the photographic plate. Finally, one of the two semicircles is flipped or rotated, resulting in a whole clock formed by two irregular halves. The steady passage of mechanised time is thus expressed in imprecision and irresolution. Designed by Elisabeth Klement and with a text by Amelia Groom.