Critical Writing Index

Tenuous Systems

by Justine Kohleal

Tenuous Systems (Systèmes fragiles), 2024

Ottawa: Karsh-Masson Gallery, 2024

This exhibition booklet was produced in conjunction with Emily DiCarlo's 2024 exhibition "Tenuous Systems (Systèmes fragiles) at Karsh-Masson Gallery in Ottawa. The exhibition was on view from February 1 to April 14, 2024 The booklet contains stills from her video "The Propagation of Uncertainty", in-situ documentation, and a piece of writing by the curator of the exhibition, Justine Kohleal.

Below is an excerpt from Justine Kohleal's text:

"Toronto-based artist Emily DiCarlo’s exhibition Tenuous Systems demonstrates through multi-channel video and sound installations the many ways in which clock time is variable, vulnerable, and far from absolute. Known officially as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is measured at the Greenwich meridian (0° longitude) in Greenwich, England, clock time purports to standardize time across borders, cultures, and economies. While we might describe time as stilling, skipping, dragging, marching or flowing, our lives are forever grinding against the 24-hour standard. And yet, the reality of time is far more slippery. Subject to human error, environmental catastrophe, and even shifts in consciousness, time is not static and changeless, but rather actively produced by governments, corporations, and even individuals. In this way, DiCarlo invites us to imagine time not as an abstracted, universal measurement indifferent to our existence, but as an embodied entity, endlessly woven into the fabric of our ordinary, everyday lives".

- Excerpt by Justine Kohleal

ITEM 2024.001 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

The Propagation of UncertaintyEmily DiCarlo

Tenuous SystemsJustine Kohleal