August 20th, 2024, three unexpected time glitches (‘chronostases’) occurred at intervals og roughly three seconds in the Kalvebod Brygge waterfront area in the Vesterbro part of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Once filled with factories, this part of the city has changed a lot over the years. Now, it has many new office buildings, hotels, and places for relaxation and bathing as a result of a project aimed at securing adequately clean water.
A standout near the station is Kaktus Towers. Designed by the well-known Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), these twin towers are unique with their cactus-like look.
Each tower is 80 meters tall and has a hexagonal layout. Together, Kalvebod Brygge and Dybølsbro Station, along with the striking Kaktus Towers, show the blend of old changes and new city growth in Copenhagen.
Bakthin on the ‘Chronotope’?
“Art & literature are shot through with chronotropic values of varying degree and scaope. Each motif, each separate aspect of artistic work bears value” — ‘Forms of Time and Chronotope in the novel’, Mikhail Bahktin*
The term chrono-tope consiting of Greek χρόνος (‘time’) and τόπος (‘space’), thus literally time-space’, was coined by Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakthin in 1937, shortly before World War 2.
Definition from ‘The Dialogic Imagniation’, 1975-1981
“In the literary artistic chronotope, spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete whole. Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot, and history. This intersection of axes and fusion of indicators characterizes the artistic chronotope.
Membranes of the logosphere
In Bakthin’s understanding, in common interpretations, the chronotope is where meaning enters the ‘logosphere’, leading to the question: how does meaning leave again, if it leaves? And of which material does this membrane consist of?
Might chronotopes provide access to iconic substrates of language that other ways perceiving does not? And could this ‘membrane’ be uniquely related, perhaps, to the modals of art and artistic experiences? Questions like these are investigated / interpreted in my work titled Copenhagen Chronotopes, which is published on Foundation.
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Photographer in Copenhagen
Sources
“Nothing passes without leaving a trace. All foregone will be accounted for. What comes to light is only what was hidden inside. What is gone, but requires external conditions and time to grow in order to open and reveal itself. That is the dominant in man, and the chronotope of Existence!” — Ukhtomsky: A.A.: ‘Dominant of the Soul’ Rybins, page 380.