All of these frame qualities separate the object viewed from our own reality of ordinary usefulness and demand that we pay attention to the object, not as something ordinary but something apart from the ordinary, creating a distance between our immediate world of usefulness and the world of the object. This distance created is called "psychical distance."
Psychical distance is directly related to frame quality. When there’s not enough psychical distance—not enough frame quality—then we have trouble seeing the object as something other than a useful, or in some cases, useless, object. Take for example the teapot we talked about earlier. If that 400-year old priceless antique teapot were just sitting out on a kitchen table during breakfast, we probably wouldn’t recognize it as anything other than just an ordinary teapot. Why? Because of a lack of frame quality. Take Dwayne Hanson's "Tourists II." It's impossible to tell see these figures as anything other than classic American tourists--that is, until you actually touch the figures. Then you discover that they aren't real at all but are lifesize replicas of fiberglass dressed in real clothes. The material used is the "frame."
There’s nothing setting the teapot apart as anything other than ordinary. On the other hand, let’s put the priceless [can price/value create a frame quality?] teapot back in the locked, glass display case. For those of us who don’t know much about antique teapots, we may still see it as just another teapot, even if there’s a sign by the teapot that says how old it is, how valuable it is, etc. Why? We don’t have enough knowledge to appreciate its worth. Sometimes a lack of information creates too much distance between us and the object [for instance, Arnolfini Wedding]. In this case, there’s TOO MUCH psychical distance between us and the object. This is why a good [educational?] museum will give you information to help you understand what you’re looking at. [Perhaps through a docent or an audio-guided tour] And good information to tell you why you should pay attention to an artwork. Without a frame, without the right amount of psychical distance, we won’t recognize an object as something out of the ordinary, something extraordinary. This is why we occasionally [work on this] hear that a priceless painting by Picasso has been purchased for $25 at a garage sale after sitting on someone’s attic for 50 years or more. Don’t we wish we were the ones who discovered it?
Psychical distance is directly related to frame quality. When there’s not enough psychical distance—not enough frame quality—then we have trouble seeing the object as something other than a useful, or in some cases, useless, object. Take for example the teapot we talked about earlier. If that 400-year old priceless antique teapot were just sitting out on a kitchen table during breakfast, we probably wouldn’t recognize it as anything other than just an ordinary teapot. Why? Because of a lack of frame quality. Take Dwayne Hanson's "Tourists II." It's impossible to tell see these figures as anything other than classic American tourists--that is, until you actually touch the figures. Then you discover that they aren't real at all but are lifesize replicas of fiberglass dressed in real clothes. The material used is the "frame."
There’s nothing setting the teapot apart as anything other than ordinary. On the other hand, let’s put the priceless [can price/value create a frame quality?] teapot back in the locked, glass display case. For those of us who don’t know much about antique teapots, we may still see it as just another teapot, even if there’s a sign by the teapot that says how old it is, how valuable it is, etc. Why? We don’t have enough knowledge to appreciate its worth. Sometimes a lack of information creates too much distance between us and the object [for instance, Arnolfini Wedding]. In this case, there’s TOO MUCH psychical distance between us and the object. This is why a good [educational?] museum will give you information to help you understand what you’re looking at. [Perhaps through a docent or an audio-guided tour] And good information to tell you why you should pay attention to an artwork. Without a frame, without the right amount of psychical distance, we won’t recognize an object as something out of the ordinary, something extraordinary. This is why we occasionally [work on this] hear that a priceless painting by Picasso has been purchased for $25 at a garage sale after sitting on someone’s attic for 50 years or more. Don’t we wish we were the ones who discovered it?
