The title of the installation collectively is: “The Time Travel Research Institute Presents:” It’s the brainchild of Patrick Turk, genius of the living arts. The project consisted of six wooden coffins lined with intricate three-dimensional paper collages from all primary source materials, each enclosed with a lid of dozens of various size lenses to refract the LED lighting and subtle animatronics within.
The Decatur Fist contribution to the Time Traveler series was a 36-minute piece, made up of six parts, each six minutes in length, with the time signatures of each lining up with a tempo of 60 BPM. The song is a calendar, a clock, that counts off the six pieces of Patrick Turk’s, “The Time Travel Research Institute Presents.”
All visual artwork: Patrick Turk patrickturk.net
10-35 seconds – 10-6 seconds (The Big Bang)
The Universe begins with a cataclysm that generates space and time, as well as all the matter and energy that it will ever hold.
360,000,000 BC – 65,000,000 BC
During this time, fish, birds, and reptiles evolved, dominating the entire planet. Their reign was ended by the KT extinction event, the largest biotic crisis Earth has ever known. It led to the extinction of nearly 75% of the species on Earth. This event was caused by a massive pink chondritic asteroid measuring six miles in diameter, slamming into what is today the Yucatan peninsula.
2,200,000 BC – 8,000 BC
Homo habilis is the first human species. This distant relative is the first creature capable of forming simple tools. By 15,000 BC Homo sapiens had evolved and become the dominant humanoid species on Earth. They would soon begin practicing agriculture, deepening the roots of civilization.
1804 AD-1869 AD
In 1804 the Lewis and Clark expedition departed Missouri, seeking overland passage to the Pacific Ocean. By 1869 the transcontinental railroad was complete, joining the east and west coast with rapid mass transportation. In order to facilitate westward expansion, the Indian Removal Act is passed in 1830, granting President Andrew Jackson the funding and authority to remove all Native Americans residing east of the Mississippi river, a goal he pursues with great zeal.
2097 AD-2150 AD
Advancements in technology will lead to a mastery of space travel, and a massive proliferation of robots and other forms of artificial intelligence.
2378 AD-3700 AD
A chronic abuse of technology leads to a near global apocalypse. In an effort to repair and ensure the balance of life on Earth, the remaining humans collectively decide to use the last vestibules of their technological knowledge to genetically fuse all remaining flora and fauna into one symbiotic organism. The entire organism has attained equilibrium, enabling it to have a planet wide psychic bridge, capable of maintaining and regulating each of it’s parts.