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Elie During proposes time as “the medium of coexistence”, as a perspective to understand “how heterogeneous durations unfolding together across the universe come to be woven into the fabric of the evolving universe” (During, 2016, 2). One would argue that temporality of work already offers a mode of coexisting by efficiently coordinating and organizing action. I wish to focus on the prefix “co-“, which hints to the fact that humans live with other humans and non-humans and negotiate daily how to live together. Taking a closer look at the operations of temporality of work, it becomes clear that it offers one single temporal order of co-labouring and co-producing. It reduces coexistence to timely organization of action and production. On the contrary, coexistence refers to multiple and heterogeneous modes of being with and relating to in time.

However, I do not want to interpret the whole universe. Prompted by the video, I will posit During’s proposal in Athens city center, on a Thursday afternoon, and focus on pace as materialized coexistence on the square.

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For the performative experiment walking on Syntagma Square: sharing time in public space (2020)

I walked

in a very slow pace

for circa 2 hours

on one of the busiest squares of Athens.

My goal was to observe how passers-by react to and interact with my pace, and how the duration of the performance might transform my body. I asked passers-by to walk with me in their own pace, in an attempt to foreground the agency of pace.

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Slowness, that approaches pause, was chosen to spark a dialogue with the constant need for movement, progress and action that dominates Western societies and, thus, human experience of time. I do not view slowing-down as a general panacea for all tempocorporeal malfunctions. I was rather interested in what would emerge with enduring slowness.

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*No timely goal

I walked without going anywhere

no task to complete

no goal to reach.

Walking was not means of transportation, it was an excuse to coexist.

I was able to choose such a slow pace because

I had no destination that needed to be reached in time.

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*Visibility

Slowness makes all other paces visible.

My slow body served as a canvas

on which the homogeneous pace of temporality of work

is embodied by the passers-by.

Although not all paces were identical, they mostly fell into the categories of

going to work or consumption and

returning from work or consumption.

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*Durational performance

Within the duration of the performance my attention and my senses underwent several stages of transformation.

As the walk endured I was able to intensively notice

the city landscape and its sounds

to attentively meet other bodies and paces

to listen to a tree

to smell the fountain

to feel the air on my skin

to see the colours.

The walk became a multisensory experience of time.

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A million times before I had passed through this square with my regular pace. I had not noticed the trees and the fountain and the people.

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Through this experiment, I realized that my regular pace (which is disciplined by temporality of work) regulates my senses. It shuts them off from several environmental stimuli and steers them towards the destination that needs to be reached in time. Likewise, attention and, therefore, attentiveness is spend for the daily scheduled actions.

I do believe that listening, paying attention, being attentive is an intrinsic part of coexisting and negotiating how we live with others in a given environment. The urgency that arises, here, is for the agency to choose a pace that allows for a multisensory experience of time and steers attentiveness towards coexistence.

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*Hesitation is pausing in the act and listening in stillness.

My slow step hesitates to meet the ground

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And “where it hesitates, it acquires vastness” (Han, 2017, 112)

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Within this pause emerge multiple possibilities of how to meet the ground

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And, thus, arises the need to choose

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Choosing in hesitation means rethinking the habitual or disciplined pace

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Pacing in hesitation means claiming the agency of pace

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The slow walk opens up possibilities for multiple temporalities and heterogeneous paces

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