Paying attention: Toward a critique of the attention economy

Abstract

This is the introduction to the special issue of Culture Machine co-edited by the authors and drawn from the 2010 conference of the same name co-convened by the Digital Cultures Research Centre for the European Science Foundaiton (see www.payingattention.org). At 10,000 words it represents a substantial rescoping of and re-engagement in critical examinations of the attention economy in the context of today's rapidly emerging realtime, ubiquitous, online digital technoculture. The introductory essay reviews the major formulations of attention and experience as economic, cultural and design themes (from Goldhaber, Beller and Franck to the more recent neo-marxist (Terranova, Marrazzi, Lazzarato) and neurologically informed approaches (Hayles, Malabou). it then lays out the ground of the special issues updating and re-focussing of this work on the current and emerging digital technocultural media sphere of smart devices, the pervasive mediation of experience, and the massive financial speculation in the attention capturing potential of social networking media. the special issue includes an interview by Kinsley with Peer2peer co-founder, Michel Bauwens, and essays by key theorists of attention Jonathan Beller, Bernard Stiegler, Tiziana Terranova, and several papers on topics from Facebook, Free and Open Software, the ecological costs of our attentional technics, to the problematic role of digital social networking in Istanbul's recent European City project.