The “Black Lives Matter Murals: Downtown Raleigh, NC” collection features photographs of murals and street art in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. These murals were crafted by various artists, creators, and makers on brick and plywood in 2020-2021. While made of various materials with different styles, these pieces of community-generated art, as well as those created and seen across the United States and the world, all illustrate and amplify the important message that Black Lives Matter. With this collection of photographs, Slow looking is coupled with the murals to equip viewers with the opportunity to experience greater intentionality in sitting with these images, their messages, and the lived realities that they reflect and convey by slowly viewing the entirety of the mural and art.
Slow looking, developed by Cogapp Labs, is an application that provides a “relaxing full-screen immersive experience." Cogapp further expresses: “This relaxing full-screen immersive experience will slowly show your chosen image in detail. It takes a few rejuvenating minutes to complete, best enjoyed without distractions.” But how can Slow looking give us an opportunity to sit with images and art that was created with temporary materials with messages that carry a long and painful history? How can Slow looking, if at all, provide us with the opportunity to grapple with how that history and socio-political inequalities are still present and dangerous today?
The Slow looking experience equips us with a greater intentionality in sitting with these images, their messages, and the lived realities that they reflect and convey by slowly viewing the entirety of the mural and art. As Cogapp suggests, we should view and experience these images without distractions. But instead of passively observing this immersive experience, pay attention to what you are seeing, thinking, and feeling. How do these images surprise, shock, challenge, ignite you?
This demonstration will illustrate the process and construction with Slow looking as an application (as well as invite attendees to reflect and respond to the practice and experience of the application), but it will ultimately focus on and feature a mural through the method of Slow looking -- allowing attendees to critically engage with the mural, the method/s, and the message.
Website:
https://kvdufresne.github.io/Black-Lives-Matter-Murals/
