This paper introduces the Balloon Time Model, a conceptual and practice-based framework developed to investigate the phenomenology of temporal experience and the unstable nature of the present moment. Drawing on Edmund Husserl’s account of retention and protention, Henri Bergson’s concept of durée, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception, the model proposes that time is not experienced as a sequence of discrete moments but as a continuously expanding field in which memory, perception, and anticipation interact.

The Balloon Time Model employs the balloon as both a visual metaphor and an analytical framework structured around three interconnected components: temporal expansion, the dynamic relation between past and future, and the continual displacement of the apparent present. Building on the author's research into the proposition that the present does not exist as an independent temporal entity, the model examines how the “now” emerges as a transient experiential construction rather than a fixed ontological point.

Situated at the intersection of contemporary visual art, phenomenology, and scientific conceptions of time, the research employs photography, video art, and experimental moving-image practices as methods of inquiry. Through performative and time-based visual experiments, artistic production generates analytical insights into duration, transformation, and disappearance.

The originality of the Balloon Time Model lies in integrating phenomenological theories of temporality with practice-based artistic research, offering a novel framework for investigating how the present is continuously constituted and dissolved within lived experience.

Authors:
Geza Csosz, Bath Spa University, United Kingdom

About the Presenter(s)
Geza Csosz is an interdisciplinary artist and PhD researcher. His interests include time, existence, and the intersection of art and science. His current project explores the non-existence of the present through photography and video art.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gezacsosz/

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