According to Rosa, the temporal structures of the "late-modern" era can be described in terms of a triple acceleration: technical acceleration, acceleration of social change and acceleration of the pace of life. The first, technical and technological acceleration, refers to the increasing pace of innovation in the fields of communication, production and transport. The second refers to the increase in the speed at which current practices in society are changing. The third relates to the existential experience of contemporary individuals, who are experiencing an increasing sense of time shortage or constraint, as they are required to accomplish more tasks in less time.
Paper Lane is also inspired by the action used by Sophie Whettnall in her work Longueur d'ondes (Wavelength) and her Plaster Landscapes series, both made of paper. These works present a superimposition of torn paper surfaces, condensing a multiplicity of more or less parallel tears, the traces of which form the outline of mountains and landscapes. They concentrate a profusion of gestures contained in these layers of sheets that have become the strata that make up the exhibits in these series. Sophie Whettnall's creations result from a cadence of gesture that simultaneously plays with the memory of movement, repeated tear after tear, the materiality of its trace, visible in each of the shreds, and the realisation of a proliferation of lines that refer to conceptual practices.
These different elements are the source of inspiration for this performance in which the multiplicity of surfaces and sinusoidal gestures, contained in each of Sophie Whettnall's exhibits, are condensed into a single surface and reduced to a single rectilinear and continuous movement. Paper Lane is thus presented as an intervention in which a single, dilated, gesture is deployed in a constant movement, the performance of which draws the space and generates the time of the action. This uninterrupted movement is devoted to tearing a long surface of paper (at least 10 metres long) in a continuous manner, thus concentrating on splitting that which is both its path and its support. In this gesture the attention is focused on the present moment of the action, while the hand cuts the material, opens up a space and creates a groove, becoming simultaneously a ritual, an act of endurance and a meditation.
Paper Lane not only stands as a testament to the act of resistance against the digital age's relentless acceleration but also encapsulates a profound ecological dimension. By choosing paper as its sole matter, the performance pays homage to this raw material derived from trees, a reminiscence of the plant world. Olga de Soto’s approach extends beyond material choice as Paper Lane also forgoes technical equipment, embodying an ecological ethos and emphasizing an environmentally conscious stance. It offers an ecology of the gesture that invites us to reflect not only on the pace of modern life but also on our connection to the environment amidst the digital age's rapid acceleration.
The action unfolding presents a performance of time based on a phenomenological approach to the experience of presence in gesture, carried by the sustained tearing of the paper and by the movements of the body, which, centimetre after centimetre, readjust its position. Time is thus produced by the performance, while the "now" of the experience is defined as a temporal flow brimming with a total presence.
Olga de Soto, 2020.