Grace Weir's Films About Time At Science Museum

Artist filmmaker Grace Weir has created four new films for the free exhibition, In my own time, which were inspired by her investigations of black holes, time and light, Einstein's theory of relativity and other philosophical ideas about time during a residency at St John's College, Oxford.

The picture shows 'Still from A little bit of unknown. Courtesy the Science Museum the artist'.

"My work attempts to align a lived experience of the world with scientific knowledge and theory," comments Weir. "Einstein's theory of relativity, and its redefined perceptions of 'space-time', initiated my interest in exploring how space and time are fundamental to personal identity and constructions of reality."

'Picture of the floating world' explores the passing moment, playing with notions of cinematic time, shifting the audience between different time places as stories unfold. The title refers to the traditional Japanese artworks ukiyo-e, which depict scenes in everyday life. In the film, ordinary events create an atmosphere of contemplation and wonder.

The title work, 'In my own time', consists of a series of episodes drawing together perceptions of time from different philosophical and cultural viewpoints, while challenging ideas of fact and fiction in documentary. Episodes revealing how ancient societies regarded time and space in relation to direct experience – encapsulated in the phrase 'as long as it takes to milk a cow' – are shown alongside treatments of Einstein's theories, ideas about civil timekeeping and the possibility of time travel.

'A little bit of unknown' deals with black holes, still mysterious to physicists, with a central conversation between the artist and physicist Paul Tod. Rational appreciation of the black holes is superseded by the beauty of the unquantifiable.

"… the only element in the construction of black holes are our basic concepts of space and time," says Tod in the film. "They are thus, almost by definition, the most perfect objects that are known in the universe."

Finally, 'A deep field for the time deaf' is an animation based on photographs taken by the Hubble telescope. A single shot of the sky develops over 20 minutes – the time it takes light from distant stars to reach us. The galaxies and pulsars on the screen represent a scene that could never be seen by the naked eye, creating a mesmerising moving image. It also recalls the fact that the night sky we see from earth is a vision that happened long ago.

"I hope that visitors to the exhibition will leave with a more complex sense of time, of the connection between the concept of one's self as a being in time, and the sense of one's life as a narrative," says Weir. www.24hourmuseum.org.uk