modern society is structured around demands on our attention. apps designed to connect us via the palm of our hand tap into our reward centres, train us to constantly seek the next reward and transform us into the product, within the new economy of attention. the act of stepping away from the screen and embracing the vastness and vividness of reality has become an act of rebellion.
The spaces we exist within in this millennium have extended beyond the physical into the digital. As those digital spaces erase the distance between us, they transform into a patchwork of billboards and advertisements, demanding ever more of our attention. Little wonder our attention spans are contracting – the constant fracturing of our attention by marketers jostling for their piece of the visual landscape leaves our attention reserves sucked dry.
The combination of the effective capture of our attention via the dopamine-laden endless scroll, and its subsequent monetisation, threatens to hold us, hostage, in a way that drains our lives of meaning without our even being aware of it. Perhaps one
reason for this is the abstraction of it all. The aforementioned endless scroll removes the barrier signalling to our minds that it is time to stop. The sense of digital community casts an illusion that we are together, making us hesitant to strike out on our own.
The greatest rebellion against the manufactured consent of the thievery of our attention is a refusal to engage. To seek out refuges in the concrete, the real, to salve our exhausted minds.
VAST & VIVID strives to reconnect with that which makes us human; that which liberates us.
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