On Time and Again

“The other day I heard someone talking about the ‘Remoment’. It was an idea about the pure return of time in the same place. And they said that maybe, right now, there’s the possibility that somewhere in this city something’s happening all over again for the very first time.” John Alexander Borley

In May 2008 a notice was placed in the Melbourne mX newspaper seeking participants for the project Time and Again. Respondents were contacted by email and informed that this was part of a series of projects for the City of Melbourne’s Laneway Commissions 08. They were offered the required criteria for participation and through this process eight residents were selected to take part.

In early June 2008, the eight participants were requested to individually meet with someone they did not know. Eight separate meetings with this person were scheduled in city laneways. For one hour the pairs walked with no pre-determined course of direction through the lanes and streets of Melbourne’s heart. The following week, on the corresponding days and for the same hour, each pair met again and attempted to repeat all aspects of their initial journey. This happened once more the week after and was ongoing to late July 2008, until every walk was repeated a total of eight times.

Over the course of the eight weeks each of the participants discussed their experience of the project with separate writers. In September 2008, the responses made by the eight writers were published as a book and made available at a number of locations in Melbourne and around Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Compiled, edited and published by John Alexander Borley, 2008. Design: Ben Harbison Cover: Warren Taylor Printing: Blueprint, Melbourne

ISBN: 978-0-646-49831-7