24 Hours, how many xianzai (now)?

Qiu Zhijie

24 hours with no sleep, 24 hours of sleep. 24 hours of no food, 24 hours continuous eating. 24 hours on the Internet, 24 hours without the Internet. 24 hours of talking, 24 hours saying nothing. 24 hours of karaoke 24 hours open. 24 hours with no water or electricity. 24 hours of stock exchange. 24 hours behaving abnormally. 24 hours not touching the ground. 24 hours behaving abnormally. 24 hours dieting. 24 hours of absolute change. 24 hours different from all other 24 hours, 24 hours with no difference from other 24 hours. 24 hours of more importance, 24 hours of no importance. 24 hours of happiness. 24 hours of anti-terrorism. 24 hours of entertainment.

24 hours is enough to make some change.
Or nothing changes in 24 hours.
24 hours of some other unit of time. A period of time is transformed into the projected image of another period of time.
24 hours greater than the history of the world.
24 hours greater than my entire life.
24 hours on the moon
24 hours of continuous changes. 24 hours of being together. 24 hours that nobody cares about.
The festival of 24 hours. For no particular reason, the reason for time to become a festival. Time festival
24 hours of extra time. Disappeared 24 hours.
Excerpts form Qiu Zhijie's diary
September 18, 2005
I went to the Beijing Film Studio.
What can be done in this space?
A monumental play? How complex should it be in order to last for 24 hours?
A daily event, a theater of everyday life? But what is the reason to move the theater into such a big space?
Time is short. I have to decide. I only have tomorrow to prepare and install. This is the limit.

This is a film studio. The studio's function is to produce images. This should be the important starting point. The function of the studio's space is also to produce illusionistic images.

September 19, 2005

One line:
Electric lights sold on the market can form a long line. Twenty people can hold the line. Let it move. Camera points to it and shoots it for 24 hours. Later, we can adjust the speed of the video.

One dot:
I will be on the opposite side of the line and use the beam from a flashlight to write the two characters of xianzai (now). The written word will be projected on a screen. How many xianzai can be written in 24 hours? This will be the title of the piece. For example: if I write xianzai 2045 times, it would be called 2045 now .

This is one way to pass 24 hours.

September 20, 2005

After a whole day of preparation, I even did not hang up the screen. I am worried about tomorrow.

September 21, 2005

Three O'clock. Not many people in the audience yet. There was no need to announce the opening of the exhibition, so we started our performance. I started to write the two characters xianzai with a flashlight. A camera was facing me to record the images. Strong light came from other directions where different works were on view. Only when I write in the dark are the images visible.

Six o'clock. I found a wooden box and used it as a stool. I opened a bottle of beer and continued writing.

Nine o'clock. Many people came to see the exhibition.

I continued writing and had written more than two hundred xianzai .

Some people came after midnight. It was apparent that they came to check if we can continue the performance without stopping for 24 hours.

I did not feel hungry probably because I drank a lot of beer. Slowly I dosed off.

Seven o'clock in the morning. Xianzai re-started.

After returned home, I counted how many xianzai had been written. Subtracting the time when I went to the bathroom or went out to smoke and the time when the audience played with the flashlight, I wrote 607 xianzais in total. Only now did I know the title of the work C 607 Now .

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From 3:00pm September 21 to 3:00pm September 22, 2005, an art performance called <24 Hours> took place at the No.2 sound stage inside Beijing Film Studio. Eight artists participated and performed simultaneously in this 24 hour long event.

Qiu Zhijie held a flashlight in his hands and gestured in the air while taking pictures and sending them to a digital projector. Each picture had an exposure time of one minute. The flashlight movements traced out the Chinese character for now' ( xianzai ) during the exposure time. This is the development of the Optical light-writing Calligraphy' photography series. Each movement of the handheld flashlight represents one Present'. The characters formed by the traces of the flashlight, in fact, signify countless Presents'. Each Present' became past as soon as it was written. The action of writing thus became enmeshed in the fruitless labor of trying to capture time.

Meanwhile, from up above, twenty assistants pulled lengths of light ropes to form a fluctuating wave resembling a cardiograph or stock market curve.

The performer wrote for 24 hours straight. Changes in the surroundings and changes in the artist's physical strength affected the appearance of the writing. As the performer's body became tired, the performance became slower. Altogether, 607 Presents' were written during this 24 hour period. Thus this became the title of this work.

607 Presents' became past, and even more Presents' disappeared into the darkness.