“Chronopolitics-III Memo of Time” is a performance seeking a duration that exceeds the human lifespan, lasting “endlessly.” “Chronopolitics” explores the boundaries of performance, subjectivity and performative societies by asking whether performance has an exterior or an end. The “endless performance” is not an attempt to celebrate the pervasiveness of performance but to draw attention to the questions of duration in our age: it evokes our difficulties to perceive the duration of the impacts of human action in a complex world of intertwining human and non-human spheres.

The starting point of the performance is the notion of a world without animals, but filled with representations of animals. This vision of a potential future is founded on two powerful trends in the present: the escalating extinction of animal species, and the vast growth of performance “species”-performance practices and research. Behind this vision is the idea, presented by philosopher Jacques Derrida, that human subjectivity is based on animals.

“Chronopolitics” branches into three threads. One is a performance by non-humans on the prehistoric shore of the post-ice-age Yoldia Sea in the northern suburbs of Helsinki, at the highest point of the city area. This performance goes on constantly, like the simple web performance www.chronopoliticsmemoperformance.fi which is the second thread of “Chronopolitics.”

The third thread is a nomadic live performance, which first appeared in March 2010. In the beginning of it, spectators went on a guided walk through the underground vaults of the Zoological Museum in the centre of Helsinki, wandering among over 10 million remnants of dead animals. From there a visitor could walk at her/his own pace to the workroom of the performance-which approached the question of the representations, mediations and memories of disappearing animals through the use of performance/remembrance technologies from different eras-and finally to an observatory for a star show and a discussion with an astronomer. The performers of “Chronopolitics” consist of people of different ages, robodogs and other machines, and beings and processes of nature. “Chronopolitics-III Memo of Time” is the last installment in the “Memos of Time” performance series, which is part of my doctoral research project “The potential nature of performance. Relationships to the non-human in the performance event from the perspective of duration and potentiality” in the Theatre Academy, Helsinki.