In-Class Exercise: Writing on Slowness

"a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention" -H. Simon

This quote ties back to one of the fundamental schools of thought relating to Marshall McLuhan's 'Medium is the Message'. As we move into the age of visual electronic media, there are so many distractions present that we start to lose grasp on what we are looking at. Any website is filled with ads, sponsors, links to other places, and just a lot of bs that diverts your attention from what is there.

In the context of the ICA, I felt that the exhibit I focused on fell victim to this a little. Cecilia Vicuña has so many small sculptures that create a feeling and vibe throughout the whole exhibit, but it makes it hard to try to focus in on one. Your attention is pulled from one to another, making it difficult to really take in each part for what it is. Unless you had the time to go piece by piece, the initial glance is much more detrimental with so many 'moving' parts. I spent an hour focusing on 4 pieces out of the maybe 40 or so that were present. It may be that she wanted the viewers to see the exhibit as a whole, but when trying to do that on my initial walk through the museum, there was so much that I missed that seemed so obvious when returning and spending even 5 more minutes there.

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