No Reason to Look

Installation view of Ad Reinhardt Paintings at the Jewish Museum, 1966. Photo by Gretchen Lambert.

I recently saw a post on Facebook, sharing a new YouTube video that someone had made. It had 12 likes and 7 shares, and no views on YouTube. This is more evidence that people are reading almost nothing (on social media) or is largely a random event dependent upon serendipity running on algorithms that either reveal or obscure information. But this could merely be a snapshot of the current state of a social media post, where those that have clicked on it make a kind of pledge to eventually engage with it, but no one really looks or reads.

I am reminded of a comment made by artist Vik Muniz about how we typically look at art in a museum or gallery: we look at the overall piece for a few seconds, lean in to look closely for a few seconds, perhaps the caption card, then move on.

When we have no reason to look, we don't really see anything, or operate on the belief we have seen everything, and are looking for something to challenge that belief.