Unfinished Scene

At art school, I once saw a short film of an ice cube slowly melting. I no longer remember whether it was large and solid, or just a small cube. What I do remember is the irritation. It took too long. I wanted something to happen. Only later did I understand that this was precisely its strength: nothing happened, and because of that, it did something to me.

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In art, an image is never just a document or a memory; it is always also a question addressed to the viewer. What do you really see? And what do you bring to it yourself? Art is a mirror — not one that simply reflects what we already know, but one that allows deeper layers within ourselves to surface. What we read into an image says at least as much about us as it does about the intention of the maker. It is an exercise in empathy: you are invited to look from another perspective.

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Photography perhaps makes this most tangible. A photograph freezes time, yet at the same time it suggests a continuation. It feels like a still from an unknown film: there is an image before and after that unfolds beyond the frame. Diane Arbus once said, “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.” A photograph reveals something, but also makes clear that something remains hidden. There is always more than what is visible. That secret compels us to place ourselves within the scene.

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In film, I have had similar experiences, for instance in the work of David Lynch. His narratives are never closed. They consist of fragments, riddles, and dreams that refuse to resolve. Where the melting ice cube once irritated me, this now fascinates me. The unfinished invites us to make connections ourselves.

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Last and First Men by Jóhann Jóhannsson evokes something similar: black-and-white images of abandoned monuments, accompanied by the voice of Tilda Swinton. The images remain enigmatic and seem to detach from the voice that evokes a distant future.

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The music, composed by Jóhannsson himself, is slow, dark, and sustained — like a breath moving through the film. The orphaned monuments give the film its openness: not a completed narrative, but a space that activates the imagination. What stayed with me most was a sense of freedom and uncertainty — a story that continues beyond the image and compels us to assign meaning ourselves.

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I experience a similar effect in the video work of Bill Viola. His “moving paintings” are carefully composed, almost ritual in their structure. Yet there is still space within the experience. His slow, almost sacred images seem to open time itself. You notice your breathing slowing down, your gaze shifting. He does not write a finished scene, but creates an experience that demands presence.

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What all these works share is that they take the viewer seriously. They trust that we are capable of moving within the unfinished, the enigmatic, or the still. And that within that space, we encounter not only the maker, but also ourselves. For me, art is therefore never a finished story, but a scene in the making — an unfinished scene that is continually completed by the gaze of the other.

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