Wood, video monitors, paint, DVD players
Variable dimensions
2003

Richard Humann_In Dog Years doghouse art installation — Richard Humann • *In Dog Years* • Wood, video monitors, paint, DVD players • Variable dimensions • 2003

In In Dog Years, Richard Humann explores the subjective nature of time and how its perception shapes our understanding of the world. Based on the familiar belief that dogs age seven times faster than humans, the sculptural installation consists of three doghouses positioned at the center of an exhibition space. Inside each house, a video monitor displays an image of a young puppy, with each video presenting the animal at a different rate of time.

In the first doghouse, the puppy moves seven times slower than real time; in the second, it appears at normal speed; and in the third, it moves seven times faster. Although each monitor presents the same subject, the altered playback speeds produce distinctly different experiences of its movement and apparent existence. Time becomes something that can be manipulated, making visible how perception changes our interpretation of a single reality.

By placing the videos inside doghouses, Humann connects an abstract concept to a familiar structure associated with domestic life and animal companionship. The viewer encounters three versions of the same puppy, each shaped by a different temporal framework. What appears slow, natural, or accelerated depends entirely on the perspective from which it is experienced.

In Dog Years extends this simple experiment into a broader consideration of subjective perception. Our understanding of time, like our interpretation of events, is shaped by the frame through which we observe it. Humann suggests that the realities we construct—whether personal or collective, micro or macro—are not always fixed or universal, but are influenced by the perspectives through which we experience the world.

Photo credits: J.B. Grant / Richard Humann Studio

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