Attensity!
A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
‘Pay attention: If you are human, you must read this book’ Jaron Lanier
We all feel it: something is seriously wrong. Our attention—that essential ability to give our minds and senses to the world—is being trapped, gutted, and sold out from under us by an industry of immense technological and financial power. The heedless exploitation of this vital capacity by a handful of tech companies is harming us all, reducing our very selfhood to that which can be quantified, bought, and sold—and shaking the foundations of our democracy.
To push back against this 'human fracking,”'we need more than individual willpower or isolated efforts. We need a movement of collective resistance. Such a movement is beginning to bloom, and in this radical, first-of-its-kind guide, The Friends of Attention show us how to join the fight. We meet welders, nurses, poets, and surfers, all of whom are engaged in attentional practices. We learn to seek out sanctuaries—theatres and museums, houses of worship, dance parties—where together we can take refuge from the frackers. Drawing on a rich legacy of critical intellectuals and the creative wisdom of diverse traditions, Attensity! takes our apocalyptic present, turns it on its head, and reveals new vistas of human flourishing.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This terminally vague treatise from the Friends of Attention, "an underground association of artists, performers, and interventionists," aims to elaborate a new practice for individuals whose attention has been "fracked" by corporate overlords. In 12 "theses," the international collective attempts to define attention, argue for its cultivation outside of digital consumer spaces, and gesture to its political possibilities. Unfortunately, this laudable mission fails to convince at every turn. Attention itself receives a slippery definition: it is "literally instrumental" yet "no mere tool"; not merely our "attention span" but "EVERYTHING WE CARE ABOUT"; both our "essential ability to give our minds and senses to the world" but also not "inherently virtuous." Meanwhile, the world's attention-seeking industrial forces are neither unpacked nor explicitly criticized. The lack of an analysis of what, precisely, has led to the "datafication" of everyone and everything tilts the book's allegedly collective call to action toward an individualistic place where attention is mostly a personal practice. Add to this the Friends' disinterest in using statistics or hard research to back up their loose arguments (they argue such arguments are part of "datafication") as well as a general unclearness about what it is they want (neither a new "neoliberal wellness practice" nor a political revolt). The result is a battle cry easily dismissed.
