The Attention Feeder, 2014 [Workshop Leader]
ACRE residency, Steuben, WI
The Attention Lab, a two-session workshop that took place at ACRE residency in the summer of 2014, gathered participants in the pursuit of prolonged attention and understanding of the Anthropocene. To help perceive this human made geologic era, we engaged in the shared reading of texts, discussion of the ‘meshwork’ (the entanglement of all things), and used sustained attention exercises led by Black and Martyn to examine a few key objects in relation to place. Inhabiting and revealing. Through this we considered our ability to reimagine and reframe perception. These activities informed collaborative artworks that humbly proposed means of adaptation through a radical re-visioning of reality and humanity’s place in the meshwork.
Texts included the introductory chapter of Making the Geologic Now: Responses to Material Conditions of Contemporary Life (Ellsworth/Kruse) and Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description, “Part II The Meshwork” (Ingold). Attention Lab Objects: Hummingbird feeders and long blades of swamp grass.
