ISLS 2026 Arts Gallery & Performance/Video

Description of the Work: #SlowLS Performance/Video

This entry is a performance/video exploring the pace of academia by a researcher disabled at the intersection of ‘academia x chronic illness’. It explores time, movement, observation, and rest as the body of the subject (me) lays back in a powered wheelchair in the midst of a busy campus sidewalk outside a large university’s college of education. Multiple viewpoints will be recorded as the subject interacts with people on campus to help them record over the next several months, emphasizing the importance of person-to-person interactions in research (current raw footage is viewable at Dr.Keifert.com/slowLS). Video playback will either be (a) manipulable by attendees to allow for slow/fast replay or (b) composite with multiple videos playing simultaneously at different rates (this depends on the technology I am able to find and bring to Irvine). The piece challenges viewers to reflect on the pace of work demanded course after course, conference after conference, paper after paper, and grant after grant. The dehumanizing demand for “two-a-year,” which requires the management of up to six-a-year (two in analysis, two in preparation, two in review cycles) and a wish and prayer for speedy reviewers, creates a relentless pace that disrupts our ability to engage with participants and data at the pace of life.

            What will viewers see? As viewers watch the video at slow speed, they may notice the minutia of the breeze through tree leaves, the subtle adjustments of the subject in their chair, the nuances of gesture and fist-pounds as the subject interacts with occasional visitors. As viewers watch the video fast speed, they may notice a flow of humanity, a river of humans streaming around the stone of a disabled body, the rush of bikes, scooters, and institutional mini-vehicles. As viewers watch the vide at life speed, they may here interactions between the disabled subject and those that stop to offer help, those that jump because they hadn’t noticed the obstacle until they were upon it, or a chat with a colleague wondering what the subject was up to. Through exploration of speed, pace, and review, viewers will be challenged to consider what becomes available at these different speeds and ask questions about what this means for a steady publication rush in the field.

            What will viewers read? Viewers will be presented with two pairs of provocations and two pairs of challenges for engaging with the video. These provocations and challenges will be superimposed on the video intermittently during playback. They will appear in pairs within 30 seconds of each other to increase the chance that one viewer will see both parts of any pair.

Provocation Pairs	Publish Parish Publish Parish Publish Parish rest.is.resistance	You should be writing. B ~ R ~ E ~ A ~ T ~ H ~ E
Data Challenge Pairs	What do you notice? Is the video too slow?	What do you notice? Is the video too fast?

Provocation pairs are intended to provoke watchers to consider common messages (publish or parish) and haunting thoughts (you should be writing) in relation to humanizing messages (breathe, rest is resistance). Similarly, data challenge pairs ask participants to consider what they notice in relation to the video playback speed, asking if it’s too fast or too slow, and opening up possibilities for considering the pace of research.

            What “ends” the playback? At the end of each video cycle playback, and sitting next to the video screen throughout, the following text appears to challenge the viewer to consider the pace at which we encounter people-as-data and how #SlowLS might offer insights not available in the oppressive pace of current hiring/tenure/promotion standards. This text reads:

When we watch video slowly, we might be more likely to become curious about human interactions, the ways we bump into each other, avoid each other, and help each other. When we rush the video, we might see broad streams of activity, noticing patterns over people. There is no right way to engage with data, but there is a wrong way. Rushing without opportunities to slow our pace leaves us without certain kinds of observations. #SlowLS asks us to consider our pace through our pipeline: from grant to human relation, analysis, rest, and writing. #SlowLS asks us to consider whether we are holding space for humanizing journeys, and the complicated ways disability might help us push back on the oppressive rush of academia.

This text ties together the kinds of observations viewers might make with a challenge to consider what we lose when we don’t allow ourselves to slow down; that is, what we lose when we succumb to the inhumane demands of the academy. I offer the alternative of #SlowLS to emphasize that this more humanizing approach can honor human relations and rest just as much as we honor pipelines (grants, analysis, writing).

Connections to Learning Sciences

This arts performance/video is directly connected to the work we do as learning scientists. It most directly connects with explorations of methodology but stretches into the expanse of academia more broadly. It also plays with under-examined tools of analysis for video editing. For instance, my website currently hosts raw footage for reviewers to examine (drkeifert.com/slowLS), but that footage is only the start. If accepted, I will take that footage into multiple video and visual editing software programs including Photoshop, iMovie, and Adobe After Effects to play with video speed, quality, filters, overlaid text, images, and other creative ways of provocation to future viewers. As a result, this is a playful examination of my typical “low editing” methods (consider Erickson’s “Ways of seeing video: Toward a phenomenology of viewing minimally edited footage”; Erickson, 2007) as well as a consideration of the pace of analysis, and the ways that my disability allow me to “slow down” the standard LS/academia rush.

Technical Details of Included Collaborative Artifacts

This work is a video plus a small display as described in the “What ‘ends’ playback?” section above. This can be put on display but it will need to be in a space where viewers can interact with the video if I go with option a above that allows viewers to adjust playback speed themselves. I could provide a computer for this purpose if that is deemed safe (someone will be in the space keeping an eye on the device). If that’s not possible, I will opt for option b above which has pre-set multi-view videos each advancing at different speeds. I am planning to provide a 5-minute video, though I hope to “loop” it so that it can play for the duration of a gallery session (60 min? 90 min?). This will take less than 5 minutes to set up. The video will have no sound, but it will need to be displayed (again, this depends on what works for you all).   

Reference

Erickson, F. (2014). Ways of seeing video: Toward a phenomenology of viewing minimally edited footage. In Video research in the learning sciences (pp. 145-155). Routledge.

Authorship & Acknowledgments

This work was authored by the subject of the performance/video, though videos were collected with the support of a range of students and colleagues at the University of North Texas, most of whom never shared their names but were more than willing to hold an iPhone and record me for a few minutes time.

More Sample Raw Footage (to be edited)

All footage is being gathered with the aid of students and colleagues, sometimes pre-planed and sometimes when I happen upon folks sitting nearby during a busy time. I tell folks I’m doing an arts piece exploring the relationship between disability and research.

More to come!