The Light Of Attention
OUROBOROS
Thesis
2022
Download thesis PDF here.
The Light of Attention is a graduation thesis written for the Bacholor of Interactive Media Design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.
Exploring the nature of Attention, Perception & Embodiment, this thesis encounters three essential ingredients to sail the seas of the 21st century. It starts from the realization that the new cognitive pressures of digital media and its disruptive attention economy are demanding our collective and adaptive response.
Through personal experience, I’ve learned that all intentional change starts with attention. Simply said: the first step to changing anything in this world is to place our attention upon it. Yet, as society today is becoming increasingly more distracted, it is now attention itself which requires close inspection.
As an artist, I want to contribute to a cognitive maturation of society by creating spaces in which we can re-ritualize the conscious movement of mind by bringing its invisible properties to light. Being reminded of the mysterious and elusive power of attention, I intend for people to be similarly re-inspirited and re-incorporated within their bodily minds, so we may realize we are carriers of an unfathomable power within. Carriers of the light that is attention. Through this thesis I aspire for people to find common ground in a common problem; the loss of sovereignty over our awareness.
Combined with a renewed sense of the illusions of perception, our awakened attention will be able to more rapidly revitalize our world-views and shorten the feedback loops between the ‘hyper-novel’ world and our mental models of it.
We know our senses speak.
But are we listening?
We’ve forgotten that observing the senses with conscious attention is radically different from relating to the world without it. Attention, in this way, can be seen as the primordial substance. The more we consciously let it flow through our doors of perception – filling the nooks and crannies of the sensuous world – the sharper our images of reality become.
Yet, without embodiment, attention alone is proven to have faint influence on changing human action.
Our reality is dematerializing, software is eating the world, and most activities are becoming mental activities. Thus, it has become imperative to maintain a careful connection to the body if we want to affect any change at all. Embodiment reminds us to feel the body as whole, because our consciousness originates from its entirety.
As a solution, the practice of meditation, to redeem our minds and reconnect with our bodies, has proven for thousands of years to be the fundamental stepping stone towards creating a better present for the individual, yet the question is: can it be implemented to create a better future for the collective too?
Perhaps if we remember we are the Ouroboros,
eternally chasing,
birthing,
molding,
and creating,
our own futures.
Hardware
Lenticular Hard Cover, 1-Side Coated Cardboard, Biotop Paper
Software
Illustrator, Indesign, TouchDesigner
Lenticular Hard Cover, 1-Side Coated Cardboard, Biotop Paper
Software
Illustrator, Indesign, TouchDesigner