A photograph flattens lived time into a single paralyzed instant

Evidence

Hockney valued painting because of the medium’s relationship to time. According to him, an image contained the amount of time that went into making it, so that when someone looked at one of his paintings, they began to inhabit the physical, bodily time of its being painted. It’s no surprise, then, that Hockney initially disdained photography. Although he sometimes used it in studies for paintings, he found a snapshot’s relationship to time unrealistic: “Photography is alright if you don’t mind looking at the world from the point of view of a paralyzed cyclops—for a split second,” he said. “But that’s not what it’s like to live in the world, or to convey the experience of living in the world.” — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 353

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s overall thesis that attention builds a world through time rather than capturing instants; also echoes the Deep Listening material on temporal perception. — connects to: Life alone realizes time by transcending the present in both directions — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 808; The present is a perpetual flight from being rather than a moment — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 445; Early photography physically immobilized subjects whose ordeal prefigures postmodern art’s effects — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 216 (+3 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Life alone realizes time by transcending the present in both directions — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 808; The present is a perpetual flight from being rather than a moment — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 445; Early photography physically immobilized subjects whose ordeal prefigures postmodern art’s effects — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 216 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The present is a perpetual flight from being rather than a moment #complicates (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 445