Photographer Stephen Shore walks out of lecture as audience can’t stop using smartphones
Sep 26, 2024
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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Renowned American photographer Stephen Shore abruptly ended a lecture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) last week. The reason: the audience members seemed to care more about staring at their phones than listening to his lecture.
In a video shared by Shanghai Daily’s SHINE, you can see Shore interrupting the lecture just as someone is about to ask a question. He went on to question the purpose of attending a lecture if audience members were more interested in their phones than the speaker.
“Since we’re talking about attention, I think we understand each other,” he said calmly. “And I think you understand the value of attending to the daily life.
“I saw at least dozens of you who spent the entire lecture looking at your phones. You’ve come here. You hear a talk and you can’t even pay attention to whom you’ve come to listen to. How can you pay attention to the food you eat or feel the sunlight on your skin?”
After a moment of silence, the audience erupted into applause. After this, Shore concluded, “I think this is a good place to stop,” stood up, and left the stage.
According to SHINE, a witness claimed that there had been a misunderstanding. A person who reportedly attended the lecture said that many people were indeed looking at their phones, but some of them were actually listening and taking notes. “We’ve already conveyed this to Shore through staff members,” the person said. Another attendee added that they showed Shore their photos and videos of the notes everyone was taking, “and he said he felt much better about it.
A staff member of the event told Shangyou News:
“We were the co-organizer of Stephen Shore’s lecture, with CAFA as the host. There should be relevant etiquette guidelines for such events. If there was a misunderstanding, we will communicate with the esteemed artist to help him understand that some audience members were actually taking notes on their phones.”
Honestly, I’d also be frustrated if I were in Shore’s place. I’m even frustrated as an attendee when I’m in class at college, seeing that kids “take notes” by taking snaps of PowerPoint presentations. Maybe I’m just old, but I believe nothing can replace taking notes on paper. After all, science is on my side here, regardless of my age.
So, while Shore’s actions may have been seen as extreme and dramatic by some, I can understand his frustration. I guess we can take this as a reminder to be present and engaged in the moment… And maybe take notes by hand so it doesn’t seem like we’re scrolling social media while someone is trying to teach us something.
[via ARTnews]
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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5 responses to “Photographer Stephen Shore walks out of lecture as audience can’t stop using smartphones”
Good for him. More people need to do this.
ok Boomer.
Seems rather extreme imo. It’s the day and age we live in. Yeah, the audience could have been more respectful, but to walk out too when I’m sure many in the audience may be fans also seems to be doing them a disservice.
Yeah, sure. As always: Just a misunderstanding. But not in the sense that people were taking notes on the phone and that’s why they were staring at theirs screens. As if anyone with a sane mind would use a phone to take notes of any reasonable amount. So “some of them” equals an amount slightly but not much larger than one or the opposite of “very rare single cases” with quality issues, manufacturers always like to call it.
I can 100% understand Stephen Shore’s anger and wish more artists would have the balls and leave those smartphone addicts to their misery. Just ask yourself, if you exhibit some or even all of these telltale signs:
– Craving
– Loss of control
– Inability of abstinence
– Constant urge for more
– Withdrawal symptoms
– Retreat from social life (the real one, with real persons)
Then I have some bad news for you.
P.S.: Re: “There should be relevant etiquette guidelines for such events.”. True, there should be. But it won’t help as seen multiple times. Shore could have and probably did communicate at the beginning of his talk that taking notes is unnecessary, because there will be a hand-out of the slides and where to get them. Probably even providing a QR code for those who are to lazy to write down cryptic URLs. Common knowledge to and best practise of presenters since decades.
just want to say “maybe im just old/old-fashioned” is never an excuse for wilfully misunderstanding the role cell phones (and their ability to take notes, translate non-native language, take video of lectures, and hilariously since that whiny dinosaur is a photographer, and this is allegedly a photography blog… the ability to take photos of something thats a point of interest…) The punch line, is cell phones have provided more people with the chance to practice photography than all the film cameras ever made. all the digital cameras too, if we want to be realistic. So maybe all of y’all should be a little less quick to throw (or defend) a tantrum just to earn a “back in my day” scout badge.
just to reinforce the silliness of pretending everyone with their phone out is playing subway surfer… im Autistic, I cannot take notes *and* listen. as im writing down what is said in the lecture, i am completely missing the next 15 seconds of the lecture. ive had teachers refuse to let me have a phone or recording device on my desk recording, and I’ve certainly heard them use the same lazy, inconsiderate reasoning you are.. “a pen and paper was good enough for me, so its good enough for everyone else”…and let’s not forget that lecture was in asia. I’m certain people listening to a lecture in a non-native language have the exact same issue I do. listen/translate/write surely costs them big parts of the lecture…
anyways, hope this changes your rather flippant attitude to how some people learn. I do appreciate the sharing of this story though. it’s always good to be reminded not to even waste my time with old photographers. their eyes are shot, their hands shake, and just dont understand, or have a connection to the world around them. truly sad to see. its the young, excited photographers coming up are who keep me inspired, and I’m sure they would sit me down and correct my missteps well before I get to the point of throwing tantrums on the stage of a venue who paid me to show up and just talk. guess dude doesn’t have many friends… big surprise.