“How much can a single pen hold of longing?” This work begins with this question. The artist uses a single ordinary blue-ink pen to write a prose poem across paper and polyethylene terephthalate film. The writing begins at the upper-left corner of the paper and continues toward the lower-right corner for 4 hours and 54 minutes, without stopping and without regard to when the ink will run out.

 

       The prose poem takes the form of a letter addressed to a period of “us,” referring to the artist and a close friend. It is written from the present self, in which that sense of “us” no longer exists in the same form, looking back through reflection and contemplation to the time they once shared. The text recalls their dreams, hopes, imagined futures, and the paths they once expected to follow before arriving at a present in which they no longer live alongside one another. Writing therefore becomes an act of remembering, longing, and reflecting on a time that has passed.

 

      Writing the prose poem continuously in a single session requires both physical and mental exertion. The 4 hours and 54 minutes therefore become not simply the duration of the creative process, but part of the work itself. As the writing continues, the ink gradually runs out, but the act of writing does not end with it. The pen continues to move across the surface, leaving traces of pressure and scratching in place of letters that can no longer be produced. Writing therefore gradually shifts from the production of language to the production of physical traces.

 

       The [ ] in the medium description refers to this condition, Traces in space produced through the continuation of writing after the ink has run out. What remains is therefore not only text that can be read, but also traces of movement, pressure, and accumulated time embedded in the surfaces of the paper and polyethylene terephthalate film. The traces on the surfaces consist of ink marks, scratches made by the pen after the ink has run out, and deeper marks made into the polyethylene terephthalate film. These traces can be perceived through the movement of light and shadow across the surfaces. As the conditions of light change, some traces become more visible while others recede. The existence of these traces is therefore not fixed, but changes according to space, time, and the conditions of light.

 

       I miss(ing) us 4 hours & 54 minutes long brings the past into relation with the time in which the work is being made through a process of writing that gradually shifts from language to trace, from memory to material, and from what is written to what remains visible on the surface. Although the time of “us” has passed, its traces remain and appear differently under changing conditions of space, time, and light.