A booklet by the authors Primož Trdan and Miloš Bartol, with texts by the bioacoustic group Jata C, created as part of the project Jata C – Chronolith.

Ida Hiršenfelder (beepblip), a member of Jata C, wrote about the work:

To think of geological time, the time of the sailing rocks, the time of the lithosphere, and the time of the continents is to think of our insignificance in the big picture, our mortality (dust to dust), and fleeting transience. It is a realisation that might motivate us to stop the insane depletion of the Earth and instead marvel at its mighty delicacy and appreciate the innumerable entities that shaped it in the volatile space and aeons of time. The rocks from the mountains used to be the seabed. The first organic matter in soil was produced by bacteria. Much limestone on the Earth originates from the activity of coccolithophores, unicellular algae covered in calcium carbonate scales. Like us, they are both alive and dead, organic and inorganic. We know too well such distinction is needless; however, it matters what worlds world worlds.[1] It is almost impossible to find a place on the planet not dictated by humans or at least transfigured as the consequences of human interventions. To the world, a different world, ruled by reciprocity and not authority, requires internalising different questions. Jata C asks, “How can we hear a stone and its aeons?”

[1] Donna J. Haraway. Staying with Trouble. Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2016, p. 35. “It matters what worlds world worlds. It matters what stories tell stories.“

Link to the artist’s notebook in pdf.

The booklet in physical form is available at our headquarters at Trg prekomorskih brigad 1, 1000 Ljubljana. Please send prior notice to info@cona.si to arrange the time and date for your visit.

COLOPHON

Primož Trdan: Chronolith – Stone, Time, Concrete and Imagined
Miloš Bartol: Time in Stone, Science in Art

Text: Primož Trdan, Miloš Bartol
Texts also contributed by: OR poiesis, Boštjan Perovšek, Bojana Šaljić Podešva, Brane Zorman (Jata C)
Translation of Primož Trdan’s text into English and proofreading: Jana Renée Wilcoxen
Proofreading in Slovenian and translation of Miloš Bartol’s text into English: Melita Silič
Cover image: Miha Godec
Editor: Irena Pivka
Design: Matej Tomažin
Publisher: Cona, zavod za procesiranje sodobne umetnosti, Ljubljana, 2023
Book collection: Steklenik 2022/23 / 1
Not for sale

The project is a part of konS – Platform for Contemporary Investigative Art. We would like to thank the company Marmor Hotavlje for access to their quarry and the sponsorship of the marble slabs for the installation.

The programme of CONA is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the City of Ljubljana, Department for Culture.

Made available in pdf format at publikacije.steklenik.si, on 1 October 2023.