Boring People
“Dawn Parsonage’s “Boring Exhibition” brilliantly highlights the private struggles we all face when bored - the struggle to find meaning, to find ways to occupy our restless minds - and shares these intimate and often funny moments with the rest of us. The result is charming, deeply human - and definitely not boring.”
Dr Erin C Westgate, Social Psychologist, Ohio State University.
I have collected found photographs of emotions for years, and over that time I’ve amassed a sub section of photographs of bored people. People captured in a bored state fascinated me, they make me ask - how could this be possible? Surely as soon as the camera appears the emotions are altered, we become self aware. And as boredom is a state where you feel trapped, where there feels like there is no escape, then surely the moment the camera appears changes your environment and give you escape you’re looking for?
But it must be possible as the found photographs proved. So I set about hunting and capturing boredom, real portraits of real people experiencing a real emotion in it’s purest form.
But there's a vulnerability to becoming bored, could I take a portrait with the subject fully aware their photograph was being taken?
Over a year, I worked with psychologists to devise experiments based on audio, pain and time perception, in order to create boring conditions. The element of distraction broke the relationship between subject and camera, lulling them into a bored state.”
During the sessions I watched as 22 of my subjects defied, resisted, and ultimately resigned to inevitable boredom. I was glued to every movement and every expression. Each person's journey into boredom was unique, and over the 15 hours I watched them, every micro expression became tantalising. I felt voyeuristic, as though I was trespassing on a personal moment which you would not usually have the licence to watch in such detail.
The resulting images are humorous and intimate and reflect the many phases of boredom.
Boring People, Louisiana Museum, of Modern Art, Copenhagen 2023-2024.
22 portraits c-type, presented on aluminium displayed on a custom 7m shelf
22 moving videos portraits of people defending into boredom in real time
3 photographs of bored people. Boring Sound, Boring Time, Boring Pain.
5 Large Format photographs of boredom
Series of boring found photographs
Boring People was first shown at Dawn Parsonage’s debut exhibition - The Boring Exhibition, at the Bermondsey Project Space, London, UK in 2019. It then went on to be part at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen in 2023/2024.
Humorous, beautiful and utterly boring, Boring People playfully explores boredom through photography, film and interaction.
The central element of the project is series of 22 boring portraits, presenting a distillation of boredom, seeking to capture emotion in its purest form without distraction.
The portraits were taken during a series of experiments, each designed to lure the subject into boredom in a different way:
1. An endless loop. The sitter is made to listen to a boring speech on a short loop which sounds like it should make sense but never does.
2. Time perception. The subject sits with a loudly ticking clock. It only has an hour hand and is in fact running at half speed. Time appears to be going slower than normal.
3. Pain vs boredom. A recreation of Dr Erin C Westgate and Dr Timothy D Wilson’s electrification experiment where subjects have the choice to shock themselves to relieve their boredom.
The experiments were devised with the help of psychologists. Each subject sat for up to an hour while a photograph was taken silently every 10 seconds.
The three experiments, are presented in the triptych ‘Boring Experiments’ and all the portraits are seen in the main piece - ‘Boring People’ a 7.6m panorama consisting of 22 portraits mounted on aluminium and displayed on it’s own bespoke plywood shelf.
Boring People poses the question, what does boredom mean in our modern lives? When was the last time you were bored? Why are playful photographs of boredom so funny?
What is my expression right now as I'm reading this?
Lens Culture Finalist - Black and White Prize
Aesthetica Art Prize - Long List
Boring Electrocution Box, Exhibited at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen as part of ‘The Irreplaceable Human’.
The Boring Electrocution box was placed in the waiting area for Infinity Mirrored Room - Filled with the Brilliance of Life by Yayoi Kusama. Over the course of the exhibition the button was pressed around 25,000 times.
“The most famous scientific study of boredom is titled, "Just Think: The Challenges of the Disengaged Mind".
In 11 experiments, Timothy D. Wilson and Dr Erin Westgate showed that many test subjects (67% of the men and 25% of the women) would rather give themselves electric shocks than be bored for six to fifteen minutes. This despite the fact that they had already received an electric shock and reported that they found it unpleasant. When asked, many of us predict that we will enjoy sitting still without doing anything. But the study concluded that we tend to be wrong; most of us find it much harder to do nothing than we think. This 'boredom button' was made by the artist Dawn Parsonage in collaboration with the researchers behind the study.
Boring Electrocution Box is a part of a larger project on boredom by Parsonage - Boring People.”
Thanks to the following sponsors, as well as Pauline Korobkiewicz, Peter Hudson, Tom Page, Verity Babbs and all the participants.
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