In the past few years key works of contemporary art have repeatedly appeared that have created a special moment - a moment that seemed to have lost its economic justification in this age of spectacles, rapid acceleration and the digital conquest of space and time: slowness. In film, video and slide projections the moment is prolonged to the point of illusionary timelessness, motion is reduced. Processes dissolve into their individual elements; connections get lost. This book uses the works of international artists to explore the relationship between temporal and narrative structures and pursues the question of how far the perception and legibility of meaning change through the prolongation of the moment. The book also looks at salient historical and theoretical issues: well-known authors consider the extension of the moment in Jan Vermeer van Delft's and Bill Viola's works and examine the game with time in the medium of film.