The refusal of time

I went to Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 10th. "The refusal of time" was created by William Kentridge and displayed at the second floor of the museum. It's a thirty-minute meditation on time and space

It was a 30-minute, five-channel video, collaborative multimedia collage installation which features live action, song, sculpture, graphic art,visual design, silent film, dance, performance and the innovative animation. Upon entering the room, we are met with darkness. There is one spotlight, aimed at the very center of the space. There is a  “breathing machine”at the center of the installation, called an elephant, and a platoon of projected metronomes, each asserting its own inescapable tempo. Overall, The films involve images of relativistic metronomes, Kentridge’s characteristic animations and charcoal figures, and an eccentrically parade-dance of vaudevillean silhouettes.

I've watched the piece twice, I feel like I’ve been progressively immersed in the work. Music and soundscape are continuous, as are the five videos, which are projected simultaneously on three of the walls. Soundtrack and moving images unfold in a sequence of what feels like about five sections that might be called ‘movements’ or ‘acts’; each has a distinct language in terms of image or sound repertoire, technique, genre and content. I think the Especially effective is the black hole theory sequence, one of the last in the video. The white streaks falling down a black background are almost ominous in the context of black hole theory. In my opinion, William tried to outline a history of our changing comprehension of time.