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Five incredible examples of slow art

From lights on snails to a mile of handwritten scroll, slow art is a time-consuming form of creativity. But for some artists, the painstaking work is worth every minute (or day… or year… or even millennium).

As the Seriously… podcast has been discovering, these pieces can bring you a moment of calm amongst the break-neck speed of the 21st Century. So, here are five incredible artistic endeavours from the world of “Slow Art”.

1. Slow Pixel by Elizabeth Saint-Jalmes and Cyril Leclerc

In Slow Pixel, 176 snails, rescued from the cooking pot, have small LED lights attached to their shells. Their performance lasts for six hours as they slide across the floors, walls and ceilings to the soundtrack of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit – the song slowed down to the rate of a snail heartbeat (photo courtesy of the artists).

2. Ash Dome by David Nash

Wood sculptor David Nash has been working on Ash Dome for 40 years. It involves 22 ash trees, shaped and sculpted as they grow. The idea began in 1977, when the Cold War was still a threat, and David wanted to make a gesture by planting something for the 21st Century: “a long-term commitment, an act of faith”.

3. Longplayer by Jem Finer

Jem Finer, musician and ex-Pogues bassist, has created a piece of music called Longplayer. The sound is produced by Tibetan Singing Bows and no combination is repeated until exactly one thousand years has passed. But it will start over again in the year 3000, should you wish to hear it from the beginning… (picture courtesy of James Whitaker).

4. Wild Patience by Tanya Shadrick

To create Wild Patience, Tanya Shadrick knelt by a pool for months on end, writing a diary on a scroll. It is one-mile long. Tanya describes it as “a land-locked, schoolrun-bounded version of an explorer’s logbook” and it begins: "Here, now. Air confetti-thick with thistledown…".

5. Morton Feldman's Second String Quartet

Composer Morton Feldman is well known for his long, slow, quiet pieces of music. Violinists, such as Darragh Morgan, have performed his compositions on stage for more than five hours at a time, entering an almost meditative state.

Tom Service profiled the composer on Radio 3's Music Matters...

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