Explore + (Learn To) Live With Uncertainty

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[2 February 2025]

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Towards the end of last year, I came across an unconventional exercise that Jennifer L. Roberts, a professor of the history of art at Harvard, assigns to all her students. She asks them to write a research paper focused on a single work of art of their choice. Up to this point, this seems quite ordinary, right?

Here’s the unconventional part:

Before doing any research in books or online, the students are first expected to go to the place where the piece of art is exhibited and spend three full hours looking at it, noting down their evolving observations and the questions and speculations that arise from those observations. Crucial to the exercise is the museum or archive setting, which removes the students from their everyday surroundings and distractions.

Since I've become obsessed with immersing myself in specific moments and experiencing their consciousness-expanding effects, I was eager to try this out as soon as I read about it. I wanted to see how looking at a single painting for such a long time would make me feel and what I would observe—both in the artwork and within my mind.

But where could I do this? I carried the idea of looking three hours at a painting with me for several weeks without actively searching for a place. I was confident that the right opportunity would eventually arise.

After two unsuccessful attempts last year to visit the Museum of Silence, I finally went there on a Saturday (or was it Sunday?) afternoon during the first weekend of January. It was a brief visit. As I left, I realized I would love to return and spend three hours observing one of the two exhibited paintings. Given the museum’s intimate atmosphere, I emailed them to ask if I could spend an entire afternoon in one of the two small rooms.

Their response exceeded my expectations. They informed me that the museum would be closed for an event in the following weeks. However, the week after that, they would be willing to open the museum just for me one afternoon so that I could observe one of the paintings without any distractions. As I read this, I became even more excited about the opportunity and accepted their offer.

About two weeks later, on the afternoon of January 23, I headed to the Museum of Silence. The staff member I had been in contact with was already expecting me. He greeted me warmly, led me into the exhibition rooms, and showed me how to dim the lights to my preference. He didn’t provide further information about the artwork, allowing me to observe without bias. Before leaving, he wished me a gute Reise, and my journey began.

My first impression wasn’t immaculate, as I had seen the painting about two weeks earlier. The blurry scenery appeared to depict a view from the top of a hill overlooking volcanic islands, the volcanoes emitting smoke. Alternatively, it could also resemble two people standing close to a cliff, gazing at either volcanoes in the sea or mountain peaks rising above the clouds. The scene reminded me of hiking Mount Etna, a place I will always remember for its remarkable silence.

Linked to these memories of my past travels, the painting conveyed a sense of adventure. The two figures I observed could be exploring unknown territory. After walking through a dense, lush forest, they arrive at a cliff and take in the view of the mountains or the sea.

I was surprised that the room, with its bright red walls and ceiling, had such a soothing atmosphere. The silence, the dimmed lights, the soft blue-gray carpet that covered the entire floor, and the simple wooden bench in the center contributed to this feeling. But it was mainly the painting that created this calming effect.

Contrary to what I associate with the painting’s colors—dark brown and blackish sepia tones—it didn’t convey sinister vibes. It conveyed a warm, soothing feeling. The brightest element was a horizontal beige line that divided the painting into two almost equal parts. Looking at the horizon always has a calming effect, doesn’t it?

After sixteen minutes, I began to passively search for other elements within the painting. I noticed that a section of it resembled a close-up of an eye staring directly at me, with the pupil being what I had previously interpreted as a person’s head. After 23 minutes, I wrote in my notebook that I felt I had seen everything in the painting, so I would just stare at it and see what happened.

I wondered if changing my perspective would alter how I perceived the painting, so I moved from sitting on the bench to sitting on the floor right in front of it. For a moment, I saw a wolf in the painting. I could make out the side and back of its head, its ears, and the upper part of its back. The rest of its body seemed to dissolve into the darkness in the bottom right corner.

After 49 minutes, I felt a strong urge to understand what the painting was meant to portray. Not knowing was difficult for me to accept. Recognizing this feeling, I decided to change my approach: I would observe the painting while accepting that I didn’t know what it was portraying.

I walked around the room, examining the painting from different angles and distances. Eventually, I decided to move to the back of the room to view it from a greater distance. I positioned myself between two spotlights that were dimmed more than those directed at the painting, standing right in front of the open door frame that led to a smaller back room of the exhibition space (Fortunately, the employee had turned off the light in this room; otherwise, I might have been tempted to observe the painting in there as well, to compare it or distract myself).

I spontaneously wrote down words that I associated with the painting during the past hour:

Mysterious, Fog, Coffee, Smoke, It is ok to not know, Clouds, Landscape, Discover, Mountains, Sea, Horizon

I spent about 10 minutes looking at the lower left corner of the painting and began to see the ocean and a beach with cliffs behind it. The painting had already reminded me of hiking Mount Etna, and now it brought to mind several other places I’ve visited: Rügen, Carmel-by-the-Sea, the Algarve, a paradisiac beach with a waterfall close to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, the scenic views from various rest areas in British Columbia, the summit of Mount Ijen.

As I continued to observe, I noticed more details. I could see subtle differences in the lighter grey and beige areas, which made that part of the painting look like the beach and sea, separated by surf. What I initially thought were cliffs could also be trees.

After 1 hour and 18 minutes, I began to wonder if the beige line I had been observing might not actually be a horizon. I had been viewing the painting with this assumption the entire time simply because it was what my brain first recognized.

With this in mind, I positioned myself closer to the painting, about two meters away. After changing my perspective, I became convinced that there were two figures in the right half of the painting. I saw them from behind; the person on the left was reaching out with one arm, possibly pointing at something.

After spending about 100 minutes in the room with the painting, I recalled the museum employee’s words before leaving me: Gute Reise. At that moment, I truly felt like on a Reise. Like on a trip to many places I have visited that resemble what I saw in the painting. Like on a journey through my mind, as I explored different hypotheses and thoughts related to my perceptions and what the painting might represent.

Around the two-hour mark, I realized that looking at and spending time with the painting made me think more about myself than about the artwork itself. I wrote in my notebook:

A key quality of art is its ability to allow for interpretation, enabling the spectator to project their own experiences onto it. It doesn’t enforce a single interpretation on the audience. Instead, it can be understood in many different ways.

I hadn’t experienced any boredom, unease, or other negative emotions until now - it was wonderful to be in a silent room for such a long time.

After 2 hours and 16 minutes, I felt I had seen everything I could see in this painting, just as I had felt 1 hour and 53 minutes earlier. I was content with the introspective effect this experience had on me and the conclusions I had drawn. However, I didn’t want to leave prematurely and remained committed to my plan of observing the painting for three hours.

I began to reflect on the themes of the painting. The first thing that came to my mind was exploration. This is how I would name the painting, I wrote down. It is what I did - I explored the depths of the painting and the depths of my mind. I added discover something new —> scene the painting shows + what I do while I am looking at it for a long time (‘life imitates art’) + it’s ok to not know —> essential to discover something new?!

At 4:30 PM, after spending two and a half hours in the room, I began to lose focus and felt a sense of emptiness. My thoughts started to drift. I was sitting in front of the bench on the floor, leaning against it with my legs extended and crossed. I realized I couldn’t remember how long I had been sitting in the same position without hardly moving. It must have been about 40 minutes. I decided to move around the room once more.

I looked at the painting from the back right corner of the room for the first time. From this angle, it appeared somewhat different. The light blotches spread across the painting from left to right connected. At that moment, the painting no longer seemed to portray anything specific. Instead, all I saw was an abstract arrangement of colors.

I walked to the front of the room and adjusted the light slightly brighter. The colors and textures revealed new nuances I hadn’t noticed before. I dimmed it again. I didn’t want to have another new perspective. This moment made me realize that my observations could have been quite different if I had adjusted the light earlier. I pushed aside these what-if thoughts and accepted that not knowing was okay.

Sensing that the three hours must soon be over, I wrote down what I considered the main takeaways from this experience:

explore

+

(learn to) live with uncertainty

As soon as I finished writing, I checked the time—it was exactly 5 PM, three hours after I had entered the room. I heard the distant sound of a piano playing, as if it was trying to wake me from my journey.

After leaving the museum, I walked through Am Tacheles, just like I did a couple of months ago when I had planned to visit the Museum of Silence, but no one opened. I enjoyed the ambient architecture and immersed myself in reflections on the buildings' large glass windows. Before taking the S-Bahn back home, I stopped at Go Asia to buy baked tofu, soy sauce, sesame almond seaweed crisps, and a ramune soda.

Once I got home, I prepared fried eggplant with tofu and white rice in a spicy sesame sauce. While I was washing the dishes, I had an epiphany that I wanted to write down. However, as I started typing about the food—which was incredibly delicious and definitely worth noting—I completely forgot what that mini epiphany was (the only thing I remember is that it was related to mastering the songs for 40 Nights in Toronto in my old studio in Wedding next week). Usually, this kind of forgetfulness bothers me, and I often try hard to remember, sometimes to a frustrating extent. Not on that day. I felt at peace with not knowing.

Enjoy your day or night!

glg Soda Paapi

PS: If you have any feedback, I’m curious to hear it!