The Patterns of Stored Time
“The Patterns of Stored Time” (2023 – 2027) is an artistic project in which I explore human perception of time through natural systems. Drawing on over twenty years of field experience - including mountaineering, biking, climbing, speleology and other immersive outdoor activities - the project translates temporal phenomena into multiple media: painting, text, and video.
Since most natural systems follow temporal cycles and processes organized according to their own rhythms and remain continuously active, nature is always in a state of dynamism. The work investigates natural cycles, rhythms, and processes capturing their continuity and dynamic flow. Visual works depict temporal patterns and transformations; textual works document experiential insights and conceptual reflections; video works employ time-lapse, slow-motion, and spontaneous field recordings to convey duration and movement. Time is a fundamental aspect of our lives and the universe, shaping the way we think and experience the world around us. According to many scientists and philosophers, time is not a fixed and objective reality, but rather a construct of the human mind. In classical physics and the natural sciences, time is not understood as a single absolute concept, but as something relative and operational. I am interested in the ways nature shapes a key dimension of human experience: our sense of time.
An increasing number of scientific studies (such as Davydenko & Peetz, 2017) suggest that experiences of nature can influence the human perception of time by: 1) expanding our perception of temporal duration, and 2) shifting our temporal perspective (our focus on and experience of the past, present, and future). In this sense, exposure to natural environments may positively affect human time perception in comparison with urban settings, and may represent an important contribution to human well-being and survival. These intangible contributions of nature are often referred to as cultural ecosystem services, and they should become increasingly important today, at a time when mental health, humanity’s place in nature, and nature’s place within humanity are widely discussed.
By integrating embodied experience, observational research, and artistic interpretation, the project examines how nature shapes temporal perception, offering insights into cognitive, emotional, and bodily dimensions of time. Its goal is to provide audiences with a multisensory encounter with temporality, fostering reflection on duration, rhythm, and the interconnection of all natural phenomena. By attending to the inner life of forms, I approach nature as an interconnected field of forces in which nothing exists in isolation. Everything is part of a continuous cycle of dissolution and transformation. Time emerges not as an external measure but as an immanent presence - inscribed in landscape, sedimented in the body, and shared through lived experience.
The project includes paintings, one video installation and a series of personal written reflections. The recent phase of the project presents a unique artistic overview of more than twenty years of research and field engagement. The video, approximately eight minutes in length, compiles short clips recorded over the past fifteen years in the mountains and natural landscapes of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, in varying weather conditions. These recordings were captured spontaneously, without prior planning, and reveal the passage of time within specific natural systems, highlighting cycles, processes, and transformations.
The video is accompanied by piano improvisations by Canadian-Berlin-based composer and sound artist Timothy Isherwood. These compositions were created roughly a decade ago, also spontaneously, in the moment, without any post-processing.
In addition to the video, the project includes short written texts in free form, reflecting personal experiences and meditations on time, also developed over the last fifteen years during stays in nature. Together, the paintings, video, and texts create a layered and immersive exploration of temporality, revealing the subtle ways nature structures human experience and consciousness.
