Run It Long
Sustain it until the length itself changes what it is.
Formerly Duration
Hsieh: punching a time clock every hour, for a year.
Seen in Tehching Hsieh, One Year Performance 1980–1981 (Time Clock Piece)
Try it on your work
Continue one simple physical activity well past its natural stopping point (sorting, walking a line, repeating a motion) until it stops being what it was. Name what it became.
Keep a single conversation or written exchange on one topic for longer than is comfortable: no changes of subject, however gracefully offered. Stop when the topic itself transforms. What it turned into was underneath all along.
Hold one project rule fixed for far longer than feels reasonable while everything else moves. Stop when the rule's meaning has visibly changed (protector to constraint, or constraint to identity) and write down which direction it went.
How it has been used
Use time itself as the material: the eight-hour film of a building, the year-long performance, the note held past comfort. Length is not a container here; it's the transformer. The move forbids compressing: if it could be shorter without changing, time wasn't doing the work.
Where it leads
Grouped under Protect what still needs to work