PPC Lecture Six - 'Attention, Please!' by Francis Russell

Name: PPC Lecture Six - 'Attention, Please!' by Francis Russell
Start: 2024-10-21T18:00:00+08:00
Location: Clancy's Fish Pub Fremantle

Schedule

Mon Oct 21 2024 at 06:00 pm

UTC+08:00

Location

Clancy's Fish Pub Fremantle | Fremantle, WA

After a short absence, PPC is back for Lecture Six!
Monday, 21st of October
6PM at Clancy's Fish Pub, Fremantle
Duration: 45-60 minutes followed by Q&A
Free to Attend!
'Attention, Please!'
By Francis Russell
Abstract:
Popular discourse warns us that we are living through a crisis of attention. From scientific studies claiming to have proven that attention spans are in decline, to politicians warning of our children's addiction to social media, one cannot avoid the narrative that digital media is robbing us of our capacity to maintain a steady presence in the world. In response to such calls to alarm, wellness gurus offer training in mindfulness, management specialists prothletise the productivity benefits of flow, and right wing influencers preach the gospel of stoic discipline and focus. No matter what you read or who you
trust, the injunction to escape distraction and to pay attention feels inescapable.
But what if the truth was more complicated? What if, instead of diminishing our ability to pay attention, contemporary digital technologies were transforming attention itself? What if, rather than simply disappearing, attention is mutating and pluralising into different modes. If this were the case, would a solution as simple as returning to older forms of attention make us any freer than we are today?
In order to explore these questions, this talk will examine the work of a range of philosophers and critical theorists—such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, Christian Marazzi, Sianne Ngai, and Alenka Zupančič—and a range of contemporary digital medias—the likes of TikTok, chatbot therapists, ambient music, and noise cancelling headphones, amongst others. Neither an apology for the technological domination of the lifeworld, nor a hagiography for the self-focused bourgeois subject, this talk will explore today's antinomies of attention.