2026 SPE Annual Conference: Catalyst for Exchange
Looking for a chapter event?
Past SPE Annual Conferences
exhibitions
2026 SPE Annual Conference Schedule
print this pageA note on learning how to look
Lu Gao
Saturday, March 21 - 3:30PM to 4:30PM
Athens
As digital culture accelerates and daily life becomes increasingly fragmented, our capacity for sustained attention is eroding. This presentation explores how photography, when approached as a meditative and embodied practice, can counteract visual overstimulation and reclaim presence in a distracted world. Through a series of walking-based projects and sculptural photo experiments, I propose a mode of image-making rooted not in consumption, but in contemplation.
With a background in architecture and a practice informed by Eastern philosophy, I approach photography not simply as a medium of representation but as a method of noticing. Using tools such as smartphone cameras, analog film, 3D scanning, and casting techniques, I examine how each process reshapes the way we see—and how looking itself can serve as an anchor amid constant sensory input.
In the face of technological acceleration, political instability, and global uncertainty, the need for inner stillness becomes increasingly urgent. Influenced by Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and the writings of Byung-Chul Han, as well as artists like Uta Barth and John Cage, I explore how slowness and attention can be forms of resistance to a culture driven by hyperproductivity and restlessness. Mundane encounters—rocks, shadows, sidewalks—become sites for inquiry and reflection. Sculptural photo-objects, often incorporating industrial materials, reframe everyday urban textures as contemplative spaces.
This presentation offers an expanded view of photography that emphasizes attention over aesthetics, process over output. It invites a conversation about how artists can respond to contemporary conditions not by withdrawing, but by engaging deeply with our tools, our bodies, and the world around us.
speaker
Lu Gao
About
- Board Reports, Letters, and Minutes
- History
- Staff
- Board Members
- Board Committees
- Board Elections
- SPE Code of Conduct
- Caucuses
Join
Members
Annual Conference
- About the Conference
- Overview
- Speakers
- Schedule
- Registration
- Calls for Proposal
- Volunteer
- Sponsors
- Exhibit
- Anti-Harassment Policy
- Hotel & Travel
- Location + Travel
- Hotel
- Schedule of Events
- Schedule
- special events
News & Events
Chapters
Exposure Journal
About this piece
Comments about this piece
Dialogue and critique are important to the SPE mission.
Please join the conversation.