Sitting and Smiling

Sitting and Smiling is an endurance art performance by Benjamin Bennett. In a typical performance, Bennett looks into a video camera which is recording him while sitting and smiling motionless for four hours.

Sitting and Smiling
Presentation
Hosted byBenjamin Bennett
Created byBenjamin Bennett
Length4 hours
Production
No. of episodes323
Publication
Original releaseJuly 28, 2014
ProviderYouTube

Bennett uploaded his first Sitting and Smiling video on July 28, 2014. Over the next several years, he uploaded similar videos at a rate of about one per week. Currently, his videos have earned more than 28 million views with over 330,000 subscribers.[1][2]

Bennett cites Claire Bishop's 2012 Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship as an inspiration for his art.[3]

Walking and Talking

On February 24, 2019, after reaching 300 Sitting and Smiling videos, Bennett began a new video series entitled Walking and Talking, in which he walks and talks continuously for four hours, or until his camera battery runs out. He speaks in an extemporaneous and reflexive manner, describing his subjective experience in real time, with subjects such as philosophy of mind, consciousness, and nonduality arising out of his self-reflection.[4]

Incidents on stream

During the fifth stream, a burglar attempted to make a scene of entering his home. When he was unable to open the door he said “Hello?”, then proceeded to shut the door and leave. This incident stacked attention online and the video currently has over 8.1 million views. [5]

In a separate incident in his 52nd livestream, Bennett clearly urinates himself, with a wet puddle seeping out from under him and gradually evaporating over the remainder of the footage. He never acknowledges this or breaks his composure and continues to sit and smile to the camera.[6]

During streams 238 and 257, Bennett cries intermittently during the stream. He does seem to break composure a bit and makes sounds while crying, but then returns to sitting and smiling.

Critical response

"There isn't really a purpose. My inbox is full of people asking me why I'm doing this, but I don't think that question is really applicable to this type of activity."

Benjamin Bennett, 2015 interview with Vice Media[3]

One reviewer commented that "One of the strangest aspects of this project is its apparent lack of explanation."[7]

Other reviewers said that the performance was "bizarre",[8] "tip of the creepy iceberg",[9] and "bonkers".[10]

A writer for The Atlantic wrote:

Sitting and Smiling is, therefore, an extreme version of engagement with the present. It takes concepts like mindfulness (it is perhaps not coincidental that Bennett's cross-legged pose recalls the stance of meditation), attention to the present, and discomfort with the speed and busyness of modern life and pushes them to until they are unpleasant, even unbearable. ... By making the videos borderline unwatchable, Bennett suggests that experiencing time in a way that is unmediated, focused, and 'real' is impossible. But, of course, Bennett manages it, smiling the whole time.[11]

See also

References
  1. "Benjamin Bennett - YouTube". YouTube.
  2. Putney, Dean (7 October 2015). "Internet man sits and smiles at camera for hundreds of hours". Boing Boing. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  3. Suzdaltsev, Jules (22 January 2015). "This Guy Is Filming Himself Sitting and Smiling for Four Hours a Day". Vice. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  4. "Walking and Talking #85". YouTube. Benjamin Bennett. 26 August 2021. Event occurs at 0:00:00. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
  5. "Sitting and Smiling #5". YouTube. Benjamin Bennett. 25 November 2014. Event occurs at 2:36:30. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  6. "Sitting and Smiling #52". YouTube. Benjamin Bennett. 20 February 2015. Event occurs at 2:47:00. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  7. Rutherford-Morrison, Lara (20 January 2015). "This Man Sits, Smiles, And Stares At You For Four Hours, Creating A Black Hole Of Existential Angst (Enjoy!)". Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  8. Tickle, Glen (20 January 2015). "Artist Benjamin Bennett Films Himself Sitting and Smiling for Hours at a Time in His Series 'Sitting and Smiling'". Laughing Squid. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  9. Parra, Sara (19 January 2015). "Sitting and Smiling is Just the Tip of the Creepy Internet Iceberg". New Media Rockstars.
  10. Reilly, Nicholas (23 January 2015). "This man is filming himself smiling for four hours a day". Metro.
  11. Kennett, Timothy (6 March 2015). "Art That Makes You Experience the Pain of Passing Time". The Atlantic. Retrieved 31 August 2021.
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