In the beginning it is (probably) interesting, then later on it is boring––don’t give up! Then it is (probably) interesting again, then once more boring––don’t give up! Then it is (probably) interesting again, then once more boring––don’t give up! —Nam June Paik

Although it often carries negative connotations, boredom is a favorable quality in Fluxus artworks. In his 1966 essay “Boredom and Danger,” Fluxus artist Dick Higgins explained: “Boredom was, until recently, one of the qualities an artist tried most to avoid. Yet today it appears that artists are deliberately trying to make their work boring.” Such “boring” artworks invite viewers to experience unexpected states of perception and enter a heightened state of consciousness. They do so often by implementing silence, the technique of repetition, and by alluding to nothingness through radical reduction of pictorial and formal expression. In opposition to a “shocking” work——to the same extent represented in Fluxus——boredom connotes a different type of experiential intensity that immerses the viewer in the work’s environment; as time passes, in the words of Swedish scholar Ina Blom, the work “disappear[s] into the surroundings, and the spectator disappear[s] into the work.” (Blom, 1998).

In Zen for Film, the lack of visual stimuli permits an awareness of ambient elements surrounding the work. Boredom does not mean the same thing for every viewer; it can be an in-between state that leads to intense experiences or an end in itself. Liberating viewers from the ego and self, boredom can potentially, as the German philosopher Martin Heidegger noted, offer an understanding of human temporality. —LH