Dirt: Disordered Attention

“In classic neoliberal style, ADHD diagnoses shift the responsibility for distraction onto the ‘innocent’ neurobiological individual, rather than addressing an underfunded public education system, privatized healthcare, Big Pharma, unaffordable childcare, and the normalization of competitive individualism.”

the degree to which attention discourse is invested in a clear “subject” looking at an “object”: a binary relation that many of those other methods have challenged.

I think attention’s prioritization of the optical is already waning in favor of alternative modes of being-in-common, reflected in the rise of a discourse of ‘care’ in contemporary art and performance—I’m thinking of all the collective, experiential, sensorial, even spiritual practices that I’m seeing today. In New York, I see exhibitions and perfo

I want to be realistic about how the mind works today, which is on multiple streams. And this situation isn’t going to change. We can set up full attention as an ideal, but our digital devices are producing a different way of attending.