Increasingly in the world of modern art, and especially since the 1970’s, there has been a shift towards the aesthetic of slowness. This is particularly in response to the speeding up of the human experience ever since the introduction of modern machines, both industrial and digital, that cut production and response times in half. Prime examples of these genres of art include open-shutter photography, time-lapse photography and mixed media art works.
Reigning as an anthology of these works is Lutz Keopnieck’s book On Slowness: Towards an Aesthetic of the Contemporary, in which he attempts to detail and comment on works which build towards this all-important slowness. In this day and age, practices such as life hacking and multitasking have become so commonplace that in some ways the head is in a completely separate place from the body most of the time. These practices are so ingrained in our daily lives that we do not even notice when we begin to act on them.
Thankfully, modern artists have become more cognizant of this draw on our very human nature, and new trends in many aspects of art have evolved. “Speed liberated the body from its stubborn biological pulses and measures, and it thereby disengaged the clocks of human morality”. Slow art, which forces the viewer to invest in the moment with a concept of time much slower than one is used to, aims to become a great counterbalance to the unprecedented, and arguably unhealthy, blend of speed and distraction in our modern psyches and selves.
In an article in TIME magazine published in 2006, anthropologist Elinor Ochs studied multitasking in families using digital media technology, and made some fascinating discoveries. Ochs posits that multitasking is actually a myth, and argues that things get done more slowly when multitasking than if one had actually focused on one thing for a period of time. ‘The big finding of a 2005 survey of Americans ages 8 to 18 by the Kaiser Family Foundation is not that kids were spending a larger chunk of time using electronic media—that was holding steady at 6. hours a day (could it possibly get any bigger? )—but that they were packing more media exposure into that time: 8. 5 hours’ worth, thanks to “media multitasking. ” Rather than attempting to slow down our modern lives we rely on this myth of increasing our productivity in the same space of time. Particularly damning, especially in Koepnick’s view, is media multitasking, only a microchasm of the larger issue, yet entirely reminiscent. Trying to stuff more time into hours in the day not only makes people move faster but it creates the illusion that time is going faster as well.
The other culprit that we are guilty of inviting into our brains is life hacking, the idea that one can “hack” tasks in their daily life to get them done faster or better. There is a multitude of media devoted to people interested in starting to hack their life. INTRODUCE “One of the weaknesses of life hacking as a weapon in the war against distraction, Mann admits, is that it tends to become extremely distracting. ” What both of these practices have in common is the belief that they will make lives not only faster but, by doing so, also easier.
Let it be clear that technology can make life easier, that is what started the entire race toward oblivion by speed, “A well of ongoing movement effectively suturing the breach between the body’s finite rhythms and the pace of social or technological progress. Speed liquefied hardened confines of modern industrialization… ” It is highly likely that many people try to add speed to their interactions with artistic endeavors as well. They block out a set time to go to experience something, or glance at it as they go along their merry way.
The most symbolic piece discussed in Koepnick’s book is the frozen Beamer, Your Mobile Expectations, by Olafur Elliason. In this work, the ice represents multiple forms of slowness, physically keeping the car in place, even though it probably wouldn’t make it far outside its showing area even without it. Furthermore Ice is known for its properties in preserving things against time. When one wants something to last longer it can be frozen, and this is done with everything from frozen peas to cryogenically frozen human heads.
Ice is also what forms glaciers, and this features prominently in another one of Eliasson’s works The Glacier Series. These massive formations not only form slowly but also move slowly, much slower than the human eye can perceive, much less the attention span wishes to contemplate. “Far from subjecting the viewer to the authoritative syntax of his work, Eliasson invites us to become at once a mindful explorer and an attentive beholder: an observer for whom the sensual and the cognitive registers of experience go hand in hand.
Glaciers are highly complex and fundamentally unstable systems. About 10 percent of the land surface of the earth is still covered by glacial ice covers, though in recent decades rising global temperatures have placed remaining glacial formations under great duress. Glaciers form from the slow transformation of snow into ice caused by the accumulation of several years’ worth of precipitation and the kind of pressure higher layers place on lower ones.
Once the ice is thick and compact enough, its own gravity will make the glacier flow… ” In addition to the idea of slowness as an inherent part of glaciers, they are being slowly destroyed by speed, as the world heats up from the emissions of more and more cars and planes pushing to be faster and faster. Yet art for the environment is another subject altogether, even though slowness could certainly be found in some works of environmental art.
The layers of slowness apparent in Eliasson’s work are extensive, and unapparent to those moving too fast, “Slowness in this understanding resists the mindless commotion of the present so as to recharge the spiritual batteries of individual existence, and communal interaction- and hence to do what speed did for many modernist speed addicts, namely to recreate the possibilities of faith and religiousness amid the disenchanted routines of modern existence. ” If one does not make a connection to a piece of slow art, they do not have a hope of ever understanding it.
Oftentimes this connection takes more time than most people are willing to part with. Those people that choose to look up from their devices, and put off other things, to engage with the art are on the forefront of fighting back against the regime that is holding so many hostages. Such as Koepnick says in chapter eight “Its [slowness] principal task is to reduce complexity, intensify individual pleasure, and thereby warrant the possibility of the profound. The people who choose to embrace slowness not only open themselves up to the possibility of profound experience, but also other human pleasures being attacked by speed. One of the later ideas discussed by Koepnick is the Omega Point, which introduces the idea that the universe is constantly evolving towards a certain point.
This is interesting because it is entirely possible that the whole universe, and not simply humanity, feels the need to rush faster and faster towards this invisible unknown. The previous chapters of this book have theorized slowness not merely as an attempt to decelerate and invert the speed of modern life, but as a mode of movement, perception and experience that allows us to engage with the present in all its temporal municipality. ” Now it is more important than ever to be able to fully open our perception and to be able to engage with slow art, as this may prove to be our only hope to avoid being swallowed up in the universes mad rush to this omega point.