There is a common misconception that time is linear, the present an illusory synchronicity of the experiential ‘now’; a notion that when we face forward, we are facing the future and that the past is behind us. But what happens when we look up? What are the possibilities when we engage in the unlimited non-linear potentiality of time, its circularity, countless realities and multiple cosmologies.

Premiering as part of a soft launch in January, under the deity Janus—the Roman god of beginnings, endings, transitions and portals—often depicted with two faces, one looking to the past and one to the future, a nod to the flow of the order of events experienced as sequence, is one part of a film trilogy by Hannan Jones.

In the unclouded celestial realm, mythologies intertwine, planetary alignments take on divination, oracles and prophecy, and ancient civilisations as well as society today are guided by these cosmogenesis systems of knowledge. Intertwining resistance, power and storytelling —forces that shape decisions of war, peace, politics, and hope. These systems of governance, rooted in the earthly, reflect and mirror the celestial order; relatively finite and infinite.

Roman legacies of Imperial structures take ‘perfect’ form through the imperfect; the Julian solar calendar, incapable of fully reconciling the orbit and rotation of Mother Earth, is structured as measurements of daily solar time in the prime meridian, ante meridiem (AM) and post meridian (PM). Imperial debris of linear ‘certainty’ fosters Western complacency that can assert ‘order’, suffocate, obscure or dismiss alternative ways of knowing and being. Ancient temporal governances persist through the remnants of collapsed civilisations, leaving behind enduring strongholds that shape how we live in the moment and orient ourselves towards the future.

Engaging with imperial logics through the filmmaking process is an attempt to hold space and re-adapt relationships by gathering at a site of major Roman occupation—a cosmological vessel. By connecting with the continuum of time, and a convergence of the ancient and infinitive, the bodies of six Bolex cameras and 16mm film, perform slow-cinema; a sensory experience of time which seeks to dismantle the imperial colonial construct of linear time, opening space for a more fluid, cyclical understanding of history, one that embraces temporalities long suppressed or erased under imperial rule. With door-like rectangularity, structurally we face the entries north, south, east, west within our central celestial templum (templum caeli) within the ruins, reconnecting with archeology to become futurology by opening a portal that eclipses the Roman imperial logics.

Text: Dr Mark Lewis, Senior Curator, National Roman Legion Museum and Hannan Jones

Notes

1. Templum’s meaning (from A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), TEMPLUM) is the space in the sky marked out as a portal with a lituus for augury and divine communication by a Roman priest.  The physical temple (templum) on the ground is just an earthly marker of the templum (portal) in the heavens above it.  Every Roman temple is therefore, still, a special place beneath patches of sky which were portals to the celestial.  Incense was/is used because it wafts heavenwards representing the prayers of the faithful, etc.[Text Wrapping Break]
2. In April 2025, the trilogy of films will be presented as part of an exhibition in the studio of the National Roman Legion Museum. This location is only yards from the gromae locus – the physical and ‘spiritual’ centre of the Caerleon fortress from which it was laid out using the groma (surveying instrument), immortalised under the centre of a massive four-way archway.

Credits

Director and Producer: Hannan Jones

16mm Cinematography: Ruby Allan, James Holcombe, Hannan Jones, Joanne Lee, Ross Little, Daisy Smith.

16mm B&W Hand Processing: James Holcombe

Sound Design: Hannan Jones

Recordings: SOMA Laboratory Ether V and ELF/VLF Electromagnetic and electrophonic field recording

Composition: Beat/s Kitchen (Hannan Jones and Shamica Ruddock)

Mix and Master: Ronan Fay at Green Door Studios

Best-light 16mm print: Colorlab, Maryland

With thanks to Dr Mark Lewis, Nigel Prince, Melissa Hinkin, Dee Iskrzynska, Katarzyna Lukasik, Reman Sadani, Dr Philippa Lovatt and the Special Collections and Archives at Cardiff University.

Commissioned for Perspective(s), in partnership with Artes Mundi, National Roman Legion Museum, Arts Council Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru.