ATTENTION LABS
a non-profit experiential workshop
created by the Friends of Attention
dedicated to the exploration and liberation
of Radical Human Attention
“A profoundly personal experience that at the same time connects you with others and creates a community you will not expect… “
“This Lab showed me how important attention is in my life. My attention is, honestly, what makes up my actual life!“
“I think something magical happened…“
We live in an “Attention Economy,”
a trillion-dollar industry that seeks to monetize our every waking moment
and “frack” human eyeballs for commercial gain.
In a world where ATTENTION, our most precious human asset,
is bought and sold by powerful and often invisible actors, and where
technological change has outpaced our ability to adapt to changing social conditions,
we find ourselves with ever-fewer tools and spaces to collectively imagine
the world we wish to inhabit.
In response, we, the Friends of Attention,
an underground network of creatives, educators and actual friends who share an interest
in the puzzles and promises of the attentive mind and the directed senses,
present to you the…
✺ ✺ ✺
ATTENTION LABS
our work to devise, recover, activate and share
forms of radical human attention
that are resistant to commodification
What are the Attention Labs?
☞ community-based/open-public, youth/adult-oriented workshops
☞ spaces for exploration and experimentation
☞ a non-profit project, free of charge
What do we do at the Labs?
✎ have conversations and engage in experimental practices in
the power, beauty and potential of human attention
under the guidance of attention activists, artists and scholars
What for?
✽ empower attentional agency
✽ engage attentional resources through practice
✽ encourage historical and critical analysis of attention
in order to
bring forth the astonishing reality of things and persons
thereby creating a more humane, compassionate and empowered future
Past Labs:
Democracy Prep and Mount Saint Vincent Labs
American Academy of Arts and Letters
Manhattan, NY
March and April 2022
Monira Foundation Lab
Jersey City, NJ
30 July 2022
“I feel like I am leaving with my attention primed, and in tune with myself in the present moment.”
“It helped me re-frame my thinking around the things that are important to me.”
“It was highly generative, and it facilitated an opening up of attention — a stepping back from the ‘ruts’ in my attentional landscape, ruts carved by the imperative to ‘produce.’”
East Harlem Lab
Agile Learning Center NYC
6 Aug 2022
Sanctuaries of Attention
Bennington College, VT
2 Oct 2022
Amplify Lab
Brooklyn, NY
18 Oct 2022
Monira Lab #2
Jersey City, NJ
13 Nov 2022
In partnership with Katharina Gruzei
and participating artists of Right Time, Right Place
Seattle Labs
Beacon Hill Library, WA
11 Jan & 18 Jan 2022
Jersey City Lab #1
Priscilla Gardner Main Library, NJ
Feb 11th, 2023
Jersey City Lab #2
Priscilla Gardner Main Library, NJ
Thursday, Feb 23rd, 2023
Attention Labs “Test Kitchen“
520 8th Ave, 3rd Floor, Manhattan
18 March 2023
3pm — 5:30pm
The inaugural “Test Kitchen” was a collaborative workshop dedicated to the development and implementation of new Practices of Attention. Participants experimented with scripts, guided exercises, manuals, choreographies, poems and other media as diverse forms of “structured experience.” Through discussions and group activities, we explored the use of attentional practices in activist organizing, mediation, facilitation and the creation of social change. Our efforts produced over a dozen new Practices of Attention, to be published on our site shortly.
Upcoming Events:
Monira Foundation Lab #3
Mana Contemporary, Jersey City
25 March 2023
2pm — 5pm
Register
for upcoming Labs
