Find out for yourself on October 14.
By Julia Berkman
Have you ever made accidental eye contact with a stranger, only to quickly lower your gaze and pretend they didn’t catch you staring? It’s an almost universal experience, and it’s something Ellen Dennis wants everyone to lean into. The Eye Contact and Human Connection event will be hosted on campus on October 14, and it’s your chance to stare unabashedly into a stranger’s eyes.
Eye Contact and Human Connection is focused on reviving the lost art of human connection.
This event is inspired by performance artist Maria Abramovic’s “The Artist is Present” series. The performance was simply the artist and a table. Those who chose to partake in the experience sat down and stared into her eyes until they felt compelled to leave.
Many people had visceral reactions to the silent, permeating stare of the artist. Some cried, some squirmed, and some spoke to her as if she were able to reply. This was, for many, an extremely eye opening experience. The feeling invoked is what Ellen Dennis, the organizer of this event, is trying to recreate.
“The inspiration behind this [event] is a very personal drive to understand and connect with other persons on a deeper level than we do in our daily comings and goings,” says Fairhaven student and event organizer Ellen Dennis.
Last spring she completed her Fairhaven senior project with a similar theme.
“When we don’t have community, we become less able to deal with trauma and life stressors that we all experience,” she said.
It is her hope that facilitating this event will help others feel more connected to their humanity and community.
Another advocate for the strange connection of silent eye contact was the New York Times “Modern Love” writer Daniel Jones. Jones wrote about a recent study conducted by Arthur Aron in which he examined the effect of eye contact. After asking and answering 36 personal questions, the participants of the study were encouraged to look into each other’s eyes for four minutes. Afterwards, those who participated didn’t exactly feel love per say, but a deeper connection to their partner was definitely reported.
In order to understand the phenomena of eye contact, I paired two of my friends up to see the connection up close. These two people have never had an extended conversation with each other, so after three strange minutes staring into each other’s eyes, here’s what they told me.
“It’s funny, but I also feel like I know him better than I did before even though we didn’t talk,” says one of the participants.
The other agreed.
“For a while I was focused on how weird it felt, but after a while I was just looking at her and I felt really calm,” he said. “Maybe the calm feeling is what the [New York Times] article is saying is love. I definitely don’t love her, but maybe we feel a little closer than before.”
As an outsider, I could see they became more comfortable around each other since sharing that moment. Maybe there is something to prolonged eye contact.
“To me, we humans need each other on levels that our western culture doesn’t even acknowledge exists,” says Ellen Dennis.
If you’d like to see for yourself whether or not long bouts of introspective eye contact can lead to personal growth or new friends, you should go to Red Square on October 14 in order to stare into the eyes of a stranger.
