slower art

museio.org and the case against channel-surfing our culture

[Jump straight to our Museio manifesto]

THE STATUS QUO

Imagine you’re in an art gallery. Not a giant leap of imagination, seeing that across just the United States, many more people visit art galleries and museums than sporting events and amusement parks combined.

Watch as the crowds pass from room to room, pausing here and there to tilt their heads or exchange a whispered word. As they glance at the artworks hanging on the walls, how much attention is really being paid to them?

It’s been recorded that visitors spend 6–8 seconds on average looking at an artwork in a gallery. That goes up to 17 seconds if they are in front of one of the masterpieces. And that includes the time spent reading the label.

Is this really the ideal way to discover and experience our artistic and cultural legacy?

If people approached television the way they do art galleries, a viewer would just channel-surf through a few hundred channels (or scroll through their Netflix) and then visit an overpriced cafe without watching anything.