Long Art 

I once did a long form art where I left a spoiled gallon of milk in my fridge for 4 years, opened it, took a whiff and threw up.

Long art - also known as the time it takes Solar Sands to put out a video...

The “Zyn Garden” pun is genius

This channel has, nearly single-handedly, given me an interest in the philosophy of art

One of the earliest examples of "slow art" I was exposed to, and a bit shocked you didn't include it, was "Organ2/ASLSP" by John Cage, an organ piece he wrote to play from 20-70 mins. A church in Halberstadt is choosing to play it very slowly, for 639 years. They had a special organ built and all. The next note will come in 2026!

He said the thing! at the end of the video!

How I feel when I accidentally leave the stopwatch on my phone going for a couple days

I spent most of my adult life working in call centers. Once I got good enough at a particular job, I would be able to finish documenting each call in the case system on the computer really fast. I'd then be stuck sitting there walking a caller through some tech support issue with nothing to do with my hands. I took to doodling on scraps of paper. I started keeping those scraps. One day, I got the idea to start a clean sheet plain 8.5 x 11 printer paper. Once I filled it with random doodles, I grabbed a fresh sheet and taped it to the original at the edges. I then had a larger canvas that was 1 sheet x 2 sheets, half full and half empty. I filled it up and taped a third sheet on. Now it was 1 sheet x 3 sheets, two thirds full, one third empty. I filled it up. I then taped three more sheets along the bottom so it was now 2 x 3, half full and half empty. I kept doing this for 11 years at three different jobs with three different companies. By the time I became disabled and couldnt work anymore, it was a rolled up at one end and I was working on the newest 3 sheets I had taped to the end of it. It was 3 sheets wide x 196 sheets long. If I unrolled the whole thing, it would have been just shy of 180 feet long by 25.5 inches wide. And it was kind of a record of everything that popped into my head for the past 11 years while on the phone with customers. Sketches, song lyrics, things people said, famous quotes, and more sketches and doodles. The whole thing was black ink. Sometimes a coworker would come by and see me working on it, grab a pen, and add their own little doodle. Maybe a spiral or a heart or their signature. There were a lot of "...was here". Then, I got sick, my stuff went into storage while I was in and out of the hospital, and eventually I had to stop working. When I finally got settled again and got my things out of storage, it was gone. I don't know what happened to it. Family and friends packed my apartment because I was in the hospital so it probably got thrown out thinking it was trash. I only have one photo of it when it was just seven sheets of paper long. I wish I still had it but I'm kind of glad it's gone, otherwise I may still be doodling right now instead of typing this.

12:40 That ZYN garden is actually pretty cool. "The sculpture is a physical record of the cost of addiction and, more importantly, of time passing" I wonder what the suppliers would think of it

I once made my own "long term" film called Sixty Glances. I went to the park on the Spring Equinox, took 15 shots of various locations of trees, benches, parking lots, etc. Each shot lasted exactly one minute, timed to the frame. Three months later I returned on the Summer Solstice and did the exact same thing, as well as for the fall and winter. The entire project took nine months to complete. It's hard to define why I did it. I was inspired by some of James Benning's works. I wanted to see how much a location would change over a time, and if a "story" would appear. What was odd, a story did in fact appear. With every season more and more humans showed up in frame, cars passed by, helicopters whirred overhead, until the final shot--a massive tree I found--appeared to be missing limbs. It made me think of how humans incidentally affect the environment without even knowing it. I'm not claiming it's super deep or anything. I mostly made the film for myself. I rarely watch the videos I make because I cringe really hard but I find myself returning to this one over and over again.

This reminds me of the game The Longing. It's a delightful game on Steam about a little guy covered in coal and ash. He's tasked by the sleeping underground king to wait 400 days.

I met a traveller from an antique land, who said "It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you"

If only this video was 500 years long 😢

honestly the most amusing thing to me about toto forever is that its location isn't disclosed. for something that obviously seems to cash in on a viral meme you'd think it would be a big tourist attraction but instead it's effectively hidden in the middle of nowhere, the only chance of it being found is completely arbitrary and it might just be discovered by someone who has no idea what it is. makes me wonder if there are any other installations out there presented like "here's this thing i made, i'm not telling you where it is, go find it"

"Art is how we decorate space. Music is how we decorate time."

There's a TV show called Life After People that talks about some of this. Things like, plastic-wrapped cookies could theoretically outlive humanity and how amusement parks would look after dozens of years without maintenence

I'm a crocheter and there's a popular project called a "temperature blanket", where we make blankets and crochet one row every day in a specific color that represents a certain range of temperatures. It's only a year but it's a very cool long art project! I've always wanted to make one. Some people also do mood blankets, and I've even seen someone do one based on the color/consistency of their poops.

Honestly? I dig it. It takes a unique individual to create something that won't come to fruition and speaks as a testament to patience and what can be seen over the course of several decades. Like the garden you plant that you may or may not see. It's kind of like waiting for that *Tumblr* video to come out. One day, it will. Or it won't. Who's to say.

I am surprised that a perpetually running comic book series wasn’t mentioned. Each month three new chapters are added. It is called One Piece, would have been interesting to talk about. /s

One of my favorite (accidental) works of arts is watching trees grow into and swallow the environment around them. Roots coming out of asphalt bumps, barbed wire firmingly stuck inside the core and forming a triangle as the tree grows upward, nails, coins and fences slowly being swallowed up. Abandoned roads and dilapidated houses can have some truly beautiful sights if you are willing to see it.

Missing my child's birth to watch this

we have truly become the solar sands

I was not expecting an r/place mention- I was a part of the 2022 r/place, and truly the experience was so special, it sounds stupid, but it will always be so memorable to me.

I'm so glad an essayist I like also enjoys seeing things wear out over time, it's such a specific feeling. When I was a kid I used to be obsessed with wearing out my shoes and school supplies, and even now I don't want to get rid of things that I'm using until they become completely useless just because I like seeing how they wear down. That slow sense of progress is comforting I think.

From a channel dedicated to devianart critiques to art philosophy, solar sand is truly a long term art piece

you know what else is long?

"then they will trully become... the solar sands" lol

This video ended way quicker than I thought it would. It felt like it was just getting started.

7:47 - 8:18 love how Canada is struggling to draw a leaf while the "Bad Apple" animation is running seamlessly next to it. (Look near the Osu! Image)

I love long art! Thank you for teaching me there is a word for this. I think 2b2t could fall into this category as well

I've been doing a long form 'art' outside our house. Every year, our car license plate get renewed and the DMV sends us the new year sticker in the mail. Each year, the stickers are a different color, and they always have a tab that says 'Peel here'. One year, I stuck one to a pole outside our house, and every year since I add another one next to the old one. I've made a ring around 3 sides of the square pole, and will start on the 4th side next year. To my surprise last year, someone else added their sticker to the collection! Fun fact: the sticker covers are a cycle and repeat themselves every 7 years.

Every thousand years, this metal sphere ten times the size of Jupiter floats just a few yards past the Earth. You climb on your roof and take a swipe at it with a single feather- hit it once every thousand years, til you've worn it down to the size of a pea. Yea, I'd say that's a long time.

Babe, wake up! Solar Sands has uploaded

one of my favorite pieces or art is “zen for film” by nam june paik, 1965. a möbius strip of blank film is setup on a projector that runs continuously and over time the dust and scratches that accumulate create natural texture and form that is than projected onto a wall. the film is reduced to its basic elements: light and time, and as time passes the piece also allows for the interaction of the viewer to create shadows with the light, in a very specific moment of time in which you are taking in the piece itself.

"Knowing the last black hole in the universe will cease to exist one day, it fills you with determination" -Solar Sans (probably)

the staircases you showed show quite well how the bird / mountain example could take place. People walked on there bare foot and with shoes, yet the much harder stone eroded. Its not just all mohs hardness scale

New solar sands video always means its gonna be a good day

HE SAID THE THING!

The human body is a work of long art. The tear of scars, the pigmentation of moles, the wear of face lines, the insertions of ink, and so much more. This is why i try to remember every scar, every tattoo, as in itself is what I think gives myself worth. Humans are artists and art themselves. - - Mb for yapping but I really enjoyed this video

this was the solar sands of all time

"YOU WILL LIVE TO SEE EVERYONE AROUND YOU DIE... WHAT WILL YOU HAVE AFTER 500 YEARS???" "I'll have a 5cm stalagmite dad"

I am always flawed by your innate ability to draw me in with your content, I don’t know if it’s your calm, considered tone, or your fascination with all things extra-ordinary but thank you for this video. I was just sitting down to draw for the first time in months and like magic this was here. Thank you for your content as always!

I have a rubix cube that is actually a calendar. Each day I solve the side. When I got this cube it was already worn down a lot clearly from someone else solving it daily. I always wondered what looked like when it was new. But now it’s my burden to bear, I must continue the long art

Thank you this is intriguing. I thought the “Clock of the Long Now” would make the list but I love these projects.

The long art focused around weathering/erosion also shows the forward march of entropy that will never stop until the universe's heat death... really makes you think different 🤔

"- What will you have in 500 years!? - 5 cm high stalagmite, dad"

The irony of "Long Art" being the name of one of your shortest essay videos is kinda funny on its own. But then that punchline at the end. Chef's kiss.

Just what I needed after a horrible week, love to see it.

In a rare instance i had some time to myself with nothing to do. I hadn’t looked for/thought of Solarsands for a while, just search his name up out of curiosity and I see uploaded 13 minutes ago. Nothing could have made me happier :)

Solar Sands is the only person that can make me watch an entire video about art

When I was learning English, I was once popped in a class 3 years above me, who were getting ready for exams. Showing up randomly didn't dissuade my teacher from giving me an exercise sheet that contained tasks and grammar a full 3 years above my level of competence. This was not by accident. My teacher was not only a plain old English teacher, but in fact a linguist and researcher in experimental fields of cognitive development in children. Obviously he didn't expect me to solve the tasks, but he held the firm belief that children can do much better, if they are not told that they are not supposed to be able to solve the task given to them. However he did not anticipate that I was not planning to earnestly engage in the excerises given to me. It's one thing not being able to identify a word. It's another to be completely clueless about half a paragraph. So instead of doing the expected thing, and using my brain, I decided to abandon even pretending to do work alltogether. Instead I started to draw teddy bears. Or at least what my teacher decided to call teddy bears. In fact they were pixel perfect copies of a mob monster, in a sidescrolling game that some of the older students managed to sneak onto one of the language lab computers. Now having grown up in a time, where home computers were an unthinkable luxury to even a wealthy household, this was a rare opportunity for me to see wonderful fairytale characters move about and bounce around in interesting ways, and most importantly, me have an impact on their movements. However access to all of this was obviously limited to a few minutes after classes. And really what I was most interested in was the look of the world, since playing it was pretty much an impossibility given the number of children thronging the one computer available. Now my hand-to-eye coordination wasn't very good at the time, so I couldn't reliably copy the characters I liked by rounding them down. But I did notice that they were all made up of nice square blocks of color. So not having any other option, I observed the character I most liked, in this case a bear, and dutifully noted down the construction of its form, going left to right, line by line. Having correctly reasoned that no matter how bad I am at drawing, if I have a record of each line that makes up the image, and the correct color of each square in each line, I can have the image of the game character for myself exactly. Now back to the impossible lingustics. Having immediately given up on the tasks handed to me, I was getting bored in the long silence when everyone else was dutiflly working. So I decided to use my color code notes, and use the ample amount of blank space on my work sheets to draw the bear I so dearly wanted to have a precise picture of. And of course as luck would have it, I botched the spacing, since the bear was either going off the sheet or into the printed text, since much like when you start to write a label on jar, if you don't account for the length of the text in advance, you might get some very cramped and wonky writing by the end. Either way, I was getting in an ever fouler mood, so instead of caring for a neat clean background, I started to go on top of the printed texts, the back, the edges in the multiple attempts to draw my bear. Now of course the teacher was bound to notice, that while other children were dutifully making an effort, I was just wasting valuable time and resources, both that of the school and of my own, larking about. And he was heading towards me in a huff, to give me a telling off, that admittedly I somewhat deserved. However when he saw my work sheet, he just went quiet, and started talking in a mellow way, very much out of character for the situation. In fact he left me to my own devices, and later gave me texts and tasks relating to art and drawing, which I thought rather neat of him. Unbeknownst to me, this very same teacher was giving developmental classes to children with very severe forms of autism and ADHD in the early morning and late afternoon. And obviosuly, he just had to take one look at my worksheet, and suspect some sort of mental problem to be carefully helped and treated, instead of just a lazy kid being a bit miffed about having to do hard work. He thought I had autism, when in fact I was just being lazy. Anyway, this video reminded me of this story for some reason.

yo honestly today i was kinda feeling like blegh, and i thought i would feel like blegh for the whole day, but this video is actually entertaining and I'm glad I came across it, so thank you man this video goes hard

Back story! You should make a community post when you finish your tower. It sounds cool.

I quit my job to watch this

Man, these milestone art project solar sands videos are my absolute cup of tea

i can’t believe i’ve watched you for so long solar, you were my favorite art channel when i was younger listening to your rants about art stuff you hate. now you are still my favorite art channel, just now it’s rants about art stuff you DO like. please keep uploading, i love your work ❤

Da art king is back baby he neva miss we're eating good today y'all

Great video! I am however disappointed you didn't mention the Halberstadt performance of John Cage's piece "As Slow As Possible". It's such an iconic piece of long art

Love to see every new upload from You. I always learn something while watching. Appreciated! Cheers.

I'm very happy this video got recommended to me, I've never seen any videos from Solar Sands before but this video is incredible! Fascinating topic, both on the art parts and the "things being worn out over time" parts

Are fart jars a form of long art?

Why did I think the title literally meant art that was long in length 😭

I've been watching your channel for years and watching it grow. From the deviant art critique days to now. I'm proud. You always make good content.

thank you so much for putting the music in the description

I started Hormone Replacement Therapy 3 months ago meaning I take estrogen everyday and day by day my body slowly changes. One of my favorite parts of the process is how a million small things change every moment that I don't even notice or realize. Later I notice how these things have accumulated to something noticeable and I'm happy but there is a large amount of peace to the fact that things are always changing even if slowly.

As a trans girl, I couldn't help but cry as you talked about acts of devotion and progress - treasuring the time it takes to fulfill my "art", my own body. Thank you for helping me view myself in a kinder way ❤

I love the addition of a sand box to make ur Zyn tower have a zyn garden base. When i saw the sand i instantly thought about an hourglass - a glass object encasing sand to count a period of time, ironically the glass is made of some of the sand just older and under more pressure and heat. Leaving the sand in a wooden box removes a bit of the self monitoring and counting aspect i associate with sand, but it still has a level of decay and degradation to it despite not being as active as an hourglass. I also thought it was interesting for you to point out how long each object would degrade to nothing. However, i am assuming those numbers are relevant to an outdoor, weathering condition - your work will last much longer indoors and with curating care. But something about the numbers feels relevant - it could b interesting to have the exact number of grains of sand it would take in yrs or the zyn containers to degrade and use the exact number of zyn containers for the wood in yrs to degrade - kinda like a cycle. Great work!

I find the concept of "long art" more fascinating, the older I get... I'm 55 now, and I've only gotten more aware of these slow incremental changes as I have been around long enough to see some of them occur. I've also become more interested in the scale at which these changes happen. For instance, when looking at an old stone stairway that has been worn down in the middle over many decades of use, I was struck by the actual process that is occurring: every time someone uses the steps, they must be removing a small bit of the material. Clearly this is happening at the microscopic scale, where each footstep might literally be displacing just a few molecules of stone. It's hard to even contemplate such tiny transformations, but they must be happening all of the time, with everything we come into contact with. Thus, we are unknowingly sculpting the world around us constantly, just by existing in it.

Used this video to watch while I worked out at home. Glad to know these gainz are a work of art

Thank your for this video. All of your videos, actually. I am an artist and I love when others become obsessed with concepts like this one or the one you made about monumentality.

thanks for putting my art at the end solar! :3

7:45 I'm still incredibly stunned that Bad Apple was successfully recreated on r/place.

mmm myes more solar sands philosophy for my brain I truly love your videos. your line of thinking reminds me of my own and the philosophy and art you feature and talk about makes me feel some sort of profound satisfaction.

I find your channel an interesting place to learn about different points of art, and it has lead me to have a lot to debate about. As much as I do not know, I still wish to acknowledge that your creations has not only inspired me, but lead me to think differently. Thank you

One of my favorite things similar to this is a project by a channel under the name of ClickSpring where the guy is making a handmade replica of the antikythera mechanism, which has taken over 7 years so far, and just the process of creating it is a long-term artwork, Chris has easily invested thousands of hours hand turning all the pieces required to create the replica

Have you heard of the Long Now foundation’s clock project? If they ever complete it, the clock will keep accurate time, for 10,000 years. It’ll also chime a new melody every day at noon as long as people come to wind the chimes. If people stop coming, the chimes will still sound occasionally, wound slowly by the heat of the sun and the coolness of the night.

i am a huge fan of long-term creative projects ! taking a selfie every day and a 1 second video of my life every day, and compiling them separately, are two lifelong projects i'll continue doing for as long as i'm around

it reminds me a lot of the digital version of something like this, specifically those videos of people taking photos of themselves every day. it resonated with me more, as i've been doing a project like that with myself. it's been only 2 and a half years since i started, and i dont know when im gonna take my last photo, but it really reminds me of that, as it shows not just the passage of time like the pieces you talked about, but also the aging of a person, both physically and somewhat mentally

Great video. I too love the process and mechanics behind time and how they change the physical environment. It puts our very short lives on earth into perspective

I got some major nostalgia from that minecraft festive music.

I’ve been subscribed since you did those deviant art videos. And man am I glad that I stuck around. Your videos are very thought provoking and niche (in a good way). I don’t see a lot of channels that discus these types of topics. I’m just so happy that you’re still making videos! I feel like I matured with you in a way. Went from making fun of cringy fetish art to philosophical art videos. Keep it up! You’re the only one left from that era lol.

This reminds me of a project I've recently begun, sending messages to other stars via modulated radio signals. They'll take years or even decades to arrive, and any response will similarly take years or decades longer to be received.

This is the kind of art I love, the building or grinding down over time. a few days ago, (Before I had watched this video) I decided to do something similar to your paper stack. I am taking my old receipts, scrap paper, and other thin packaging, and I am gluing them together into a sort of brick. Now granted I have other plans for when this project is done other than having a sediment of trash, I plan to (try to) whittle it into something else. The colors and textures I believe will give it a very interesting material to look at

My long artwork is that I make lots and lots of paper stars, put them in bag (I'm talking about three thousand a bag) and then give those to people around me, and likely because you don't just throw thousands of hand-made stars away they will be living on as gifts to different people. Also, I'm on my eleventh bag and I'm very proud of myself :)

I think the coolest Long Art piece I saw was some chairs hanging really high up in the room by some rope looped through a pully and connected to candles on the ground. So as the candles burned out it would release the chairs and drop and they would smash. We didn't catch any of the chairs falling but that exhibit has been on my mind since I saw it a few years ago.

There is no other content like yours on any platform 🙏 thank you for expanding our minds

vsauce3 vibes. good work man. love this type of content

I think a really good point is brought up with artworks like these. As long as they are maintained, we will have something to look forward to. I think it's part of the reason so many people are into idle games. They're slow, but progress is always being made. You can let it sit and tune back in whenever it crosses your mind. It feels like there's always more to experience, like tuning into some show with weekly installments.

amazing as always. love your content.

I.. could say I'm a long artist for the fact that I'm still planning to finish those 3 digital paintings that I haven't touched since November 2020 that were meant to be a gift "trilogy" for a fanfiction author based on their story.

dude i just realized and remembered, the device i'm on right now, how cool- one of my 2 devices i have carried for 2 years, in my pocket, always back to back, have slightly mirrored worn out patterns on the housings that grows over time 😂❤ i always stare at them, and the moto has the motorola textured plastic grooves so even sound comes into it, picking up the device, pulling it out, fiddling, and putting away, all change over time. as well as ths tactile feeling, along with my fingers doing their own wear patterns, very cool stuff. amazing video!!

Your section about the Zyn Garden just made me realize that I'm also making long term art! One of my tasks at my work is to sort through our mail. Sometimes when we receive mail, they'll be bundled together with a rubber band. After a while of sorting through mail, I decided to start making a rubber band ball. Every week, I'm slowly adding 3-4 rubber bands to the ball

I remember your channel from those "art things I hate" videos and now I see you talking about long art or something. Still art but GG that's evolution

ahh your videos are always worth the wait

Another great video! Love everything you upload, Solar Sands!

Solar is slowly getting me to care about normal art and im all for it.

In your essays you really mange to capture something deeply existential in our relation with time. Like creating art and reflecting on it can be both viewed as ways of handling the everlooming knowledge of our own transience. We can do nothing about our mortality both as individuals and on a universial scale but at least, we can try to cope with it by making art and expressing our feelings or by trying to make sense of it all through reflection and analysis, finding comfort by instilling meaning in the world around us and sharing our thoughts and emotions with other people.

I am a long form artist too, whenever I finish a roll of toilet paper I don't throw it in the bin I stack it against the toilet wall. I have a stack of empty toilet rolls the width of my restroom and up to my hips. It will only end when the lease ends

This has to be my favorite video Solar Sands has ever posted!

I just finished watching your "Journeys to Hell" video (it was amazing) and now you post this right after? Amazing