Sarah: Hey, everybody.  We're back in Chicago and we're in the studio of Jan Tichy, and we're here to discuss your responses to Jan's assignment that was called Expanded Moment, and it was to...   Jan: Find a place with potential of visual movement.  Place your camera on a stable object.  Build a frame, and record at least two minutes of video without moving your camera.   Sarah: So this one was by Abigail Ellman.  So what she's done is she has taken footage of people viewing another photograph.  It almost sets up this kind of station where people come into the frame and exit the frame and there is this time-keeping aspect to it, and it makes me think a lot about how museums do research about how long people look at a picture and it's quite short and this is uh, this is evidence supporting that.   Jan: There was as well something that maybe because it was in a museum and we are not sure if we actually can place a camera on a tripod there, right there--   Sarah: Well, you wouldn't be able to.   Jan: Yeah.   Sarah: I mean, if--if--if they had asked--   Jan: And it's a part of--   Sarah: --the answer would have been no.   Jan: Yes.  The trembling in this situation sort of is part of the situation that we understand culturally.   Sarah: One of the ones that you, that you picked out was this one called 'Ribbon' by applejuicejadedear.     Jan: I like that there was something that in a way was staged.  Most of the submissions were not staged, the artist sort of went out in most cases and even though they did expect things to happen, it was sort of very open.  Here there was really beautiful way of paying attention to something which we might not expect, and I think that there is, as well, some type of a transformation that is happening to the ribbon.  As the time goes, the ribbon starts to build into almost sculptural form.     Sarah: So the next once I wanted to bring up was by Grace Miller, Wushu, which is a Chinese martial art.  There were a few instances of this in the responses of people putting the camera on the floor.  You feel like you're really there, like it firmly plants you.  You're there, too.   Jan: And as the time goes and the fighters are entering the frame and rolling, we are getting these glimpses of their faces, right, and so this sort of group portrait is slowly coming together as they are entering into the space and filling it.     Sarah: So this next one was by mycharliequinn.  There's a really beautiful, thoughtful introduction to this one, and I thought that was interesting, with--a lot of them were just what they--they were the Expanded Moment, that was the whole video and maybe there was a little description in the text, but for this one, it was incredibly touching.   Jan: And in a way, I think like with the previous video, it's a sort of a portrait.   Sarah: A portrait of what?   Jan: I think this one is portrait of the artist, and the stable is sort of the central object to the frame that mycharliequinn talks about as this very important place for her, and so allowing us through observing that space to feel her, to be in her place and to sit there for half an hour and feel how it is.     Sarah: This one is just titled 'An Expanded Moment' by Crumpart.  I think what attracted me to it how different it was from many of the other responses.  It's very much following the assignment in a very kind of simple way that I found very compelling to watch, where you set up--they've set up a situation where there's the potential for movement, and then we're watching it play out.     Jan: And I think that what is as well interesting is this relat--sort of almost literal relation to expansion, because these objects sort of floating in the air feel like that they are going to expand and we are sort of caught in this endless tension and expectation.   Sarah: So, this one that you selected is by Marco and it's titled 'Dead or Alive'.   Jan: It does look like a very old and important cemetery and it seems like the people that are coming are not necessarily coming to visit their relatives, but probably coming as tourists and therefore, their activities are different.  We don't see people bringing flowers or to take care of graves, they're coming and they are taking pictures.   Sarah: Just walking through, and there's something so dramatic that I-- about a cemetery, from media, from movies, and this is so banal, you know?  It is so everyday, I mean, it makes you think about how strange it is to take pictures in a cemetery.   This one was definitely one of my favorites and it's by Michael, and it is a video documenting a Magic: The Gathering grand prix in New Jersey, and here you're in this terribly lit convention hall packed with people but for me, the movement is in their heads.  All of these things happening in their, in their imagination, in their mind, you know, strategizing as they're playing this game, but it's in this terrible convention center where they're all packed in and you're seeing them like you know, rows of cans on a--on a shelf in a grocery store.    Jan: And the way that Michael framed it, he doesn't allow us to actually see the game, we cannot really follow what's happening, and so we are left just with the heads and with the hands of these hundreds of people.  It almost feels like one organism, but when you look at them, they're each in their own world.    Sarah: It's like looking at an apartment building, where there's all these stories within the building; there's a whole intense relationship and world that's happening with each pair.     Jan, thank you so much for giving us this assignment and for reviewing them and talking about them with me.  It's a wonderful activity to do, it's something that I wanna continue doing and even though we've discussed them today, please continue to create Expanded Moments and share them with us on your social media platform of choice with the hashtag 'theartassignment.' Thanks a lot, Jan.   Jan: Thank you, and please do!