'View from the Window': on time, politics and domestics during the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic
'View from the Window': on time, politics and domestics during the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic
The present article aims to contribute to theorisations of the politics of time through a detailed engagement with techno-aesthetic strategies of temporal synchronisation and heterogeneisation of everyday rhythms during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. The exploration focuses on practices of mediatisation of domestic spaces, in particular by examining photographs posted on the Bulgarian-language ‘View from the Window’ Facebook group. The group was founded during the first coronavirus lockdown in April 2020 and its members used it to share images taken from their private homes onto exterior spaces. Theoretically, I build on Henri Lefebvre’s rhythmanalytical project, from which I derive an understanding of the polyrhythmic and multi-scalar character of the everyday, while engaging writings from visual cultures, performance studies, architecture and media theory. The article looks closely at two formal aesthetic strategies that established themselves for posting on the group: The visual strategy of framing and the use of time stamps in image captions. On the one hand, I show how these media practices are engaged in synchronising views with each other; I argue that they contribute to the creation of an equivalence between views while obfuscating their underlying socio-material conditions, which tend to remain outside of the photographic frame. On the other hand, I also demonstrate that these practices can be equally generative of asynchronicity and dissonance between views, bringing to the fore a spatio-temporal heterogeneity and the articulation of stark socio-political differences. The article thus contributes an analysis of the interplay between time, politics and domestics through the conceptual prism of an engagement with aesthetic practices of mediation.
View From the Window, asynchronicity, coronavirus, domesticity, framing, pandemic, rhythmanalysis, synchonisation, temporal politics, time stamp
Genova, Neda
28792bd8-b147-4938-a175-8d54fa7173a3
5 March 2024
Genova, Neda
28792bd8-b147-4938-a175-8d54fa7173a3
Genova, Neda
(2024)
'View from the Window': on time, politics and domestics during the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.
Time & Society.
(doi:10.1177/0961463X241237393).
Abstract
The present article aims to contribute to theorisations of the politics of time through a detailed engagement with techno-aesthetic strategies of temporal synchronisation and heterogeneisation of everyday rhythms during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. The exploration focuses on practices of mediatisation of domestic spaces, in particular by examining photographs posted on the Bulgarian-language ‘View from the Window’ Facebook group. The group was founded during the first coronavirus lockdown in April 2020 and its members used it to share images taken from their private homes onto exterior spaces. Theoretically, I build on Henri Lefebvre’s rhythmanalytical project, from which I derive an understanding of the polyrhythmic and multi-scalar character of the everyday, while engaging writings from visual cultures, performance studies, architecture and media theory. The article looks closely at two formal aesthetic strategies that established themselves for posting on the group: The visual strategy of framing and the use of time stamps in image captions. On the one hand, I show how these media practices are engaged in synchronising views with each other; I argue that they contribute to the creation of an equivalence between views while obfuscating their underlying socio-material conditions, which tend to remain outside of the photographic frame. On the other hand, I also demonstrate that these practices can be equally generative of asynchronicity and dissonance between views, bringing to the fore a spatio-temporal heterogeneity and the articulation of stark socio-political differences. The article thus contributes an analysis of the interplay between time, politics and domestics through the conceptual prism of an engagement with aesthetic practices of mediation.
Text
genova-2024-view-from-the-window-on-time-politics-and-domestics-during-the-coronavirus-disease-2019-pandemic
- Version of Record
More information
Published date: 5 March 2024
Keywords:
View From the Window, asynchronicity, coronavirus, domesticity, framing, pandemic, rhythmanalysis, synchonisation, temporal politics, time stamp
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 494777
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/494777
ISSN: 0961-463X
PURE UUID: 5357e96c-f61e-4c56-bb5b-009f848a2ac9
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 15 Oct 2024 16:45
Last modified: 16 Oct 2024 02:15
Export record
Altmetrics
Contributors
Author:
Neda Genova
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics