Art and the Ecology of Time

Standard time is measured on atomic clocks, providing a technical basis for business and personal activities. Might trees be more meaningful timekeepers? Might a clock paced by their natural growth encourage us to nurture our environment and the relationships that matter most? Over the past several years, conceptual artist and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats has been collaborating with the Long Now Foundation and the Nevada Museum of Art on a monumental clock calibrated by bristlecone pine trees. In this talk, he'll discuss his scientifically-driven artistic research on matters of time and ecology – which has also included the development of cameras taking thousand-year-long exposures in the Tahoe Basin and the founding of a new Institute for the Greater Holocene as a center for post-Anthropocene research at the University of Nevada-Reno – and will discuss the potential of collaborations between artists and scientists to encourage long-term thinking.