On Slow Seeing
November 3, 2010
I’ve been experimenting with slow seeing when viewing works of art during gallery visits and opening receptions.
Background-wise, I’ve created art over the years, have operated a retail gallery and now am transitioning that space to an online gallery, Kryder Gallery. There has been a constant thread running through my experiences in roles as artist, gallery owner, juror, collector and non-profit organization volunteer: I like to look at works of art, do my best to connect with them, and sense my experiences in reaction to them.
I’ve found of late that I’m dawdling and lingering longer over works that I’m viewing. I contrast this with times my eyes have been in a hurry. To get done viewing so I can talk with other folks present and hear the buzz about what’s going on among artists and galleries. Or maybe to get done viewing so I can move on to the munchies.
I’m not fully sure of what slow seeing is yet, but this seems to be an important element: dawdling and lingering in the viewing process. By contrast, a lot of viewing in our culture is based on what I guess would be called fast seeing. I immediately think of watching TV commercials and being overwhelmed with the rapid-fire sequencing of scenes.
Out of curiosity, I searched for some stats on average scene lengths for movies and commercials. It never ceases to amaze me to discover technology applications to meet ultra specific needs, and one of these is an app from a Latvian group called Cinemetrics (www.cinemetrics.lv). Cinemetrics’ software lets a user analyze movie and commercial scene lengths and construct easy-to-read data charts. Two outputs were fascinating for me – the stats on Avatar and a Victoria’s Secret commercial. Here are some of the findings:
Avatar
Length: 2 hrs 34 minutes
# of shots (scenes): 2,401
Longest shot: 29.4 seconds
Shortest shot: .4 seconds
Average shot: 3.9 seconds
Victoria’s Secret Commercial
Length: 1.5 minutes
# of shots (scenes): 76
Longest shot: 4.6 seconds
Shortest shot: .2 seconds
Average shot: 1.2 seconds
These are some examples of fast seeing, and I have to admit – although I expected to find fast cuts – I was astonished to see how quickly scenes change. And yet in the end we do get a rich experience because of artistic/dramatic editing and bringing together of the scenes into a cohesive whole.
Perhaps this look at fast seeing helps define slow seeing where the latter is spending many more seconds and minutes engaged with a work of visual art. Maybe slow seeing is the difference between vacationing in NYC vs. on a remote beach. Or the difference between scanning a popular entertainment weekly in the dentist’s waiting room vs. cozying up with a novel next to a fireplace.
It’s all good, for sure, but I’ve got some curiosity about slow seeing and its virtues that I’ll be exploring in this blog.
How ’bout you… what do you think slow seeing and its elements are? How and where do you do slow seeing?
