Date of Award
Spring 5-27-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Art (M.F.A.)
Department
Conservatory of Music
Language
English
First Advisor
David Grubbs
Abstract
Introduction: Time Demonstrations Time
Demonstrations is a live sonic performance about historiography, revolution, time, and transtemporal relations. Against the historiographic partitioning of discrete eras and movements, the work tries to string together and resolve the relational impasses of spatiotemporal distance and mortality through language over the phone, with a timeline listing instances of freedom-seeking revolt throughout several centuries. Soundscapes generate time through spatial and frequency sweeps, shifts, reverses and smudges, and live speech of a historical timeline gets caught in digital tape, playing backward and forward in fragments and long freezes. A line is opened between the past and the present with the repeated incantation: The past is always open. The past is yet to come. A solo performer makes a call to bridge time. Every revolution that was ever started can still be, and still is.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Dietz, Mars, "Time Demonstrations" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/bc_etds/37
