The Three-Hour Bench, Constraint #68
Choose a public bench. Sit down. Stay for exactly three hours. Observe. Don’t read, don’t look at your phone. Just be there.
Reference artist(s): Tehching Hsieh.
The protocol
- Choose a bench in a busy place… a public square, a park, a train station. Not an isolated spot.
- Sit down. Put your phone in your bag or pocket, on silent. No book, no headphones.
- Observe. People, lights, sounds, movements, details you never notice because you’re always looking elsewhere.
- Stay for three hours. If you feel like leaving, note the urge and stay anyway.
- After three hours, write for twenty minutes without lifting your pen… everything you observed, thought, felt. Submit on the site.
Variants
- Choose the most mundane bench possible in a place you walk through every day without stopping.
- Do it at different times of the day… morning, noon, evening… on the same bench.
Post your trace on ouviepo.fr with the hashtag #ouviepo_TheThreeHourBench