Blog # 21

The Louvre. A bunch of folk looking at the Mona Lisa. They notice the enigmatic smile, the subtle modelling of form and the atmospheric illusion. They view the Sfumato style, the smoky style.

However I am not so sure they are looking at the Mona Lisa. To me their gaze, their attention, is interrupted and remade by mobile phones. Rather than taking in the experience of viewing the masterpiece, the crowd photograph it.

They will then rush on to snap Liberty Leading the People, The Raft of Medusa, The Death of the Virgin, and The Coronation of Napoleon. All eminently snap-able.

I’m wondering why do we feel the need to photograph rather than look? To snap rather than stare.

I am genuinely wondering since the phenomena now appears to be going global. Art galleries, football games, rock concerts, tourist attractions are all snapped, images grabbed and moments acquired. Millions of digital files are made, stored and then?

I am wondering why.

I have to be careful. The question places us, the ‘sophisticated art lovers’ who really know how to properly appreciate a painting ! Against them, the rowdy rabble only concerned with snapping away. It risks elitism and snobbishness.

I’m trying to understand as I surmise that something significant is going on here.

First thought . . .Maybe the crowd wish to remember this looking, this image, to cement a memory, by making it solid in their phones.

I’m not wholly convinced that memory alone is a significant factor here. This image, the Mona Lisa, is ubiquitous. Google it, buy the reproduction, buy the tea towel, buy the book, buy the postcard. We are probably unable to forget images of the Mona Lisa, the memories are everywhere. Do we also need them on our iPhone?

Somehow it’s like a vicious circle: maybe the reason why everyone looks for the Mona Lisa is because its one of the most reproduced works of art, so there you go and reproduce it again and again and again .. . .

Second thought. . . . ‘I snap to prove I have been there, I’ve done that’. Proof of a visit, proof of an experience. Now I can share it with my friends and family, I can share it on social media, I can bore a dinner party with it. I was there. I, individual was there.

This of course is not a new phenomena, it has always been common to purchase a souvenir of a visit, or send a postcard, in order to remember the occasion. ‘I was there’. How many souvenirs would we have purchased, or how many postcards would we have sent to friends in order to prove our visit ? Two or three maybe, certainly not the tens, or even the hundreds of mobile phone images taken. This seems more like an obsession rather than a traditional activity.

These thoughts again I feel are not the complete story but they certainly give us a clue to lead us on.

Third thought . . . . The ‘Times They Are a-Changing’. Well yes, but just as importantly time is changing. Time has speeded up. Time seems to be much in demand but in short supply. A shrinking globe, high-tech rapid communication, flying to Australia non-stop, motorways, instant news, online shopping and perhaps most revealing of all Instagram. Instagram is an amalgam of ‘instant camera’ and ‘telegram’, both are speed freaks. These all reduce available time . . .

We feel as if we are on an unstoppable
conveyor belt that brings us new tasks
as fast as we can dispose of the old ones,
becoming more productive seems to
cause the belt to speed up

Edward T Hall

Time is squeezed as life accelerates and everyone becomes more impatient. We are in a state of ‘Joyless urgency’ What happened to ‘stand and stare’?

For many aeons, time was not a thing or even a way of life. In the early agricultural period it is thought that concerns about time did not exist. The day was a day and a season was a season.

The industrial revolution and the clock changed all this. Factories demanded the coordination of hundreds of people, fixed hours, fixed in, fixed out, six days a week, to keep the machines running.

Time became an abstract entity, a thing out there, and soon became used as a resource. Time became something to be bought and sold. Time became a thing to be used, to be made better use of. A pressure, a struggle. A struggle with the clock.

The trouble with attempting to master time
is that time ends up mastering you

Oliver Burkeman

Most people spend 15 to 30 seconds in front of a work of art according to Museum researchers. It takes less than1 second to make a snap of the Mona Lisa with a mobile phone.

The problem of course is that it takes time to appreciate a painting or any work of art. Art is a tactile thing and what a pity that so much of painting is protected by glass, imagine be able to smell the art. Looking for minutes rather than seconds will allow you to see the details, the marks, the brush strokes, the story, perhaps even the meaning. Constant photo taking may actually diminish our ability to recall our experiences, divert our attention, and take us out of the moment.

it no longer feels unorthodox to
use cell phones in spaces meant
for viewing art. It can feel as ordinary
for people to take a picture of an
artwork as it does to text a friend
rather than call them. . . . . . the act of
viewing through the screen of a phone
may feel as natural as simply looking.

Isabel Sullivan

A photograph strips the art work of its tactility. A photograph transfers it from an object into a mere image. Snapping is fine, it might even be educational or inspiring. It’s the not looking that bothers me. We need to slow down to the speed that art demands.

Fourth thought. . . . The photograph supersedes the experience, the photographing is more important than looking. There appears to be a deep need to photograph the artwork. Why?

I have an idea. The idea of possession.

Is the need to take a photograph of the Mona Lisa a need to possess it in some way? To consume it?

Now it is clear that our contemporary economy is highly dependent on the notion of consumption. Buying stuff seems to have become central to our way of life. Buying stuff has grown exponentially in the last 45 years as we have moved from a more socialised economy and way of life into a more individualised economy, following the tenants of neoliberalism.

In the 1950s and 1960s the purchase of consumer goods was expanding, built on a period of economic stability and the end of rationing. The new possibility of vacuum cleaners, washing machines, fridges and TVs opened up new markets.

I well remember my Mum’s first washing machine. Twin tub. Separate washing and spinning tubs.

The washing transferred from one tub to another. Two connections to be made, electricity for the spin, gas to heat the washing water. I also vividly remember the small Bakelite TV that my grandad drove to our house to watch, for a precious hour or two, every Sunday. What luxury!

Now TV screens appear in every room, one for each family member. TVs as wide as the room, a necessity rather than a luxury. Dishwashers, freezers, microwave, air fryers, rice cookers, convenience food, instant cake mix.

Yes, rising incomes have facilitated this phenomenal growth but I don’t think they explain this growth.

Consuming, buying stuff, in the 50s and 60s was largely restricted to what was regarded as essentials. Now every possible consumer item seems to be available for purchase as the idea of what is essential has escalated.

Buying stuff in vast quantities seems to have become a dominant element in our economy. Buying stuff makes the economy circulate. Make stuff, buy stuff, make money, move money, keep business and industry buoyant.

With this in mind it is perhaps not surprising that buying stuff has become a way of life for us all. Look at the success of online shopping, Amazon, E-Bay, screaming at us to buy and buy easily, at the touch of a mobile phone key, delivered the next day, as long as it’s not from China!

As further evidence look at storage units. Storage units are a new phenomena that grew up with the escalation of buying stuff. New self-storage space, equivalent to more than three Canary Wharf towers, or about 6,000 two-bedroom flats, has been opened in the UK in the past year, 2024. Figures show more than 100 storage complexes have opened in British towns and cities from 2021 to 2024 and that the sector now generates £1bn a year in revenue.We buy so much stuff now that we cannot longer stuff it into our homes and have to stuff it in a rented storage unit.

Acquisitiveness has become a lifestyle, a way of dealing with the world, a way of being. Most importantly acquisitiveness would appear to have become a way of looking at the world. We see, we need, we buy.

So many of us appear to be no longer happy in the world. To experience the world, to be part of it. Rather we seem to see the world as something to possess, to own, and to have.

We have eyes for the purchase. That is a big part of our world, a big part of our lives.

the acquiring of products defines our identity
and sense of self. We seek happiness and fulfilment
through consumption, making it a purpose of life. . .. .
consumerism is a lens through which we understand
the world; forming our values, relationships,
Identity and behaviour, culture and the entire social structure of society.

Sophia Binz, Anne Blanken, Melanie Veltman

In a word we have, in part, become alienated. Alienated from experience, from seeing, from being at one with others. We have become separated from experience by the need to possess. It is an alienation that points towards a high degree of individualism as we become separated from the world around us. Pulled back into our own restricted worlds. Worlds surrounded by stuff.

We have developed a high degree of the need to possess, to own stuff.

The mobile phone has become the ideal instrument for satisfying this need. It is the High Priest of Consumerism, both as a product and, perhaps more importantly, what it can do. In so many ways the ubiquitous mobile phone aids and abets our acquisitiveness.

So standing amongst the Mona Lisa crowd with my mobile phone I take a snap, I reproduce the painting. I now own it, a virtual slice of it. It is mine to keep, mine to use, mine to have.

I’m not sure quite why so many people are taking mobile phone photos of the Mona Lisa.

I am sure that an understanding can be found in the notion of consumption, of acquisitiveness and the need to own stuff.

What is this life if, full of care,
we have no time to stand and stare.

No time to turn at beauties glance,
And watch her feet, how they dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
enrich that smile her eyes began

A poor life this if, full of care,
we have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies

PICTURE REFERENCES.

Mona Lisa . . . . . . Grzeqorz Czapski
2 Women. . . . . . . Photo by Isabel Sullivan. Artwork by Natvar Bhavsar.
Busyness . . . . . . . Kyle Kowalski
Twintub . . . . . . . . PA Images.

QUOTES

1 Edward T Hall: Quoted in Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals   Oliver Burkeman

2 Oliver Burkeman: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

3 Isabel Sullivan: How Cell Phones Hamper Our Ability to Appreciate Art Exhibitions

4 Cole, N: What Does Consumerism Mean?