Translating Missed Time
In Rococo England, 1751, the British usurped its citizens of 11 days. That is, September 3 became September 14th with the wave of a parliamentary wand. Riots ensued, placards were held high in the streets proclaiming “Give us back the 11 days!” with effigies of Jews in the background. Hogarth made an engraving depicting these protests, but only as seen through a window. No further illustrations of this “missed time” are known.
The consequences of introducing the Gregorian calendar must have been magnanimous, unimaginable. What happened in England in 1751 had happened in Germany and the Netherlands in 1658. The calendar was introduced in Russia in 1918, in Greece as late as 1923 – but elsewhere in Europe already in 1582 when Pope Gregor XIII per the Papal Bull Inter Gravissimas introduced reforms, advancing the calendar by 11 days. However, some Orthodox churches still use the Julian calendar, and the Islamic calendar follows the lunar system, its months having no connection to the seasons as opposed to the solar calendar used everywhere else.
What would happen if the Gregorian calendar were first introduced today? Time outside of time? Time of which no memory exists. The question presents a conundrum of consciousness, a translation or adaptation of the shadowland: what would a reconstruction of this missing zone resemble? Our desire is to re-present or to perceive these eleven days of time-images, time contingent on unfolding a psychic zone.
– April Lamm and Franz Stauffenberg
Translating Missed Time
In Rococo England, 1751, the British usurped its citizens of 11 days. That is, September 3 became September 14th with the wave of a parliamentary wand. Riots ensued, placards were held high in the streets proclaiming “Give us back the 11 days!” with effigies of Jews in the background. Hogarth made an engraving depicting these protests, but only as seen through a window. No further illustrations of this “missed time” are known.
The consequences of introducing the Gregorian calendar must have been magnanimous, unimaginable. What happened in England in 1751 had happened in Germany and the Netherlands in 1658. The calendar was introduced in Russia in 1918, in Greece as late as 1923 – but elsewhere in Europe already in 1582 when Pope Gregor XIII per the Papal Bull Inter Gravissimas introduced reforms, advancing the calendar by 11 days. However, some Orthodox churches still use the Julian calendar, and the Islamic calendar follows the lunar system, its months having no connection to the seasons as opposed to the solar calendar used everywhere else.
What would happen if the Gregorian calendar were first introduced today? Time outside of time? Time of which no memory exists. The question presents a conundrum of consciousness, a translation or adaptation of the shadowland: what would a reconstruction of this missing zone resemble? Our desire is to re-present or to perceive these eleven days of time-images, time contingent on unfolding a psychic zone.
– April Lamm and Franz Stauffenberg