Thomson & Craighead's Time-Based Works Explore Systems and Narrative at Young Projects

An exhibition titled 'Wake Me Up When It's Over' featuring the artist duo Thomson & Craighead ran at Young Projects in Los Angeles from January 27 to April 21, 2017. The show presented works examining impersonal systems and temporalities through video and moving-image art. Their 2010 piece 'The Time Machine in Alphabetical Order' re-edited George Pal's 1960 film adaptation of H.G. Wells's novella, arranging every spoken word alphabetically, which dismantled the narrative while foregrounding language structure. This approach contrasted with Christian Marclay's 2010 work 'The Clock', which synchronized film clips showing time with real-time. Another work, 'A Temporary Index' from 2016, displayed countdown timers representing the millennia until nuclear waste sites become safe. 'A Short Film About War' (2009) combined Flickr images with blog excerpts about war experiences, displayed alongside metadata and Google Earth animations connecting global locations. The artists' practice investigates the tension between systematic order and human narrative, often using digital archives and platforms as material. Their work was discussed in the April 2017 issue of ArtReview.