Tenuous Systems, 2024
solo exhibition
Karsh-Masson Gallery, Ottawa, Canada
Feb. 1 - Apr. 14, 2024
exhibition catalogue essay by Justine Kohleal
videography by Miles Rufelds
soundtrack by Ashton Price
“Toronto-based artist Emily DiCarlo’s exhibition Tenuous Systems demonstrates through multi-channel video and sound installations the many ways in which clock time is variable, vulnerable, and far from absolute. Known officially as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is measured at the Greenwich meridian (0° longitude) in Greenwich, England, clock time purports to standardize time across borders, cultures, and economies. While we might describe time as stilling, skipping, dragging, marching or flowing, our lives are forever grinding against the 24-hour standard. And yet, the reality of time is far more slippery. Subject to human error, environmental catastrophe, and even shifts in consciousness, time is not static and changeless, but rather actively produced by governments, corporations, and even individuals. In this way, DiCarlo invites us to imagine time not as an abstracted, universal measurement indifferent to our existence, but as an embodied entity, endlessly woven into the fabric of our ordinary, everyday lives.” - Excerpt by Justine Kohleal
