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HOW LONG IS NOW, 1997, Globalodromia, light installation, FILOART groups show Implosion, 2000,  Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin

How long is now? The more we approach this question, the more it raises new questions and the less it becomes tangible and answerable. What is Now? How long does Now last? Is there Now at all? And if yes, where is it, where does it manifest? In the space, in ourselves or somewhere else? The Now that occurs in space and in the environment is just a Now information that travels to a certain place in our brain. Even if this Now passes through our body (including the brain), it remains a traveling Now information. In addition, this traveling Now information needs different lengths of time to reach its destination. Even if the Now information needs very short time to reach its destination, regardless of that, it takes time. And this fact opens the question: Do we live in the past? There should be a space (in the brain) where Now actually happens, and that’s the N.T.S. (now-time-space). Unfortunately we cannot experience this Now-time but only the Now information!
Each human brain works differently and at different speeds. Are we aloud to talk about only one Now or should we rather take in consideration different Now-s? If time is a human construct, that means there is no past and no future and of course no Now. The question of where Now happens is very close to another question – where is I (myself) situated?Since there are still no exact answers to the questions inter alia, where Now is manifesting and how long Now actually lasts, HOW LONG IS NOW cannot be just a question, but a question, answer and statement at the same time.

Globalodromia FILOART 1997

Formation of the work and previous presentations

The question HOW LONG IS NOW was for the first time presented as an artwork in 1997 in the Tacheles Werkschau, from the Globalodromia FILOART. This work was conceived and realized as a light installation. A black cube from which letters of light were emerging. Light is a temporary and immaterial medium, and the sentence in light was transporting the question into space and time. Three years later, HOW LONG IS NOW was shown in the FILOART groups show Implosion at the Art House Tacheles (2000). This work took a central place in this exhibition. It shone out of the dark space of the Blauer Salon and drew visitors to sink into the question of NOW, to think about and discuss it. In 2001, at the Kosova National Art Gallery in Pristina, HOW LONG IS NOW took part in an exhibition titled NOW. Here was the work presented as a mural. It was placed immediately on the front wall of the entrance hall. The first thing that the visitors of this exhibition had to be faced with was: the question. In 2004, this work was shown as a light installation at Galerie 35 in Simon-Dach-Street in Berlin. The visual presentation of the work was extended from the interior of the gallery over the very busy nightlife street to the opposite residential building. On the one hand, the work was visible from different perspectives thus in several layers and higher complexity, and on the other it was related to the outer space and a broader public. From the back wall opening of the completely dark and empty gallery space, the rays of a light projection where hitting the front glass of the gallery and the light was splitting over three levels:
Level 1. The direct projection onto the window glass pane of the gallery. Part of the light remained visible on the glass pane.
Level 2. From the glass pane of the gallery one part of the light was reflected into the inner wall of the gallery.
Level 3. The rays of light that continued through the glass pane to the facade of the opposite building.
On all three levels the viewer could read the sentence HOW LONG IS NOW in light letters. But where is Now? If we add the slide projection as one plane of the work and the lens of the projector as another plane, then we have five different levels. The work was thus to be perceived on five different levels. Nevertheless, none of the observers could experience the true Now.

After almost ten years, in 2006, the work returned to the place where it was first made (1997). This time not as a light installation in the interior of the Kunsthaus Tacheles, but as a wall work/mural on its bare eastern exterior (Exhibition Akrotia). HOW LONG IS NOW stands there in black letters on a white wall surface of 14 m x 12 m. In a very busy and multi-layered public space, it has been discovered, considered, commented or ignored by countless people over the past years. It has become a trademark of the city, and every Berliner or Berlin visitor who has walked or driven through the Oranienburger Street, has dealt with this work in one form or another. In its environment, it forms a self-evident and alien element, which can be perceived as an irritation as well as a subliminal message. It throws back on the Now of the viewer and at the same time projects a new level of reality/possibility into the space, which remains permanently effective through the simplicity and the enigma of the sentence.

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HOW LONG IS NOW, 2006-2019 Globalodromia, East Facade of Tacheles, Berlin