Distance, Attention and Being: Thinking About Media

Distance, Attention and Being: Thinking About Media

Audio recording of a lecture given by tutor David McDonald on October 25, 2024 as part of the Dean's Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean's Office has provided this description of the event: "Aura, for critic Walter Benjamin, is the authenticity and uniqueness of the work of art, its situation in time and space. For natural beings, the equivalent is what Benjamin calls distance. The distance of the tree, the bird, the mountain--or the human person--is its independence and stature, its unassimilable being. A medium brings things closer, diminishes the distance of beings; this is much of Benjamin's concern in his consideration of photography as a medium, as a means of "mechanical reproduction." Invoking Simone Weil's and Iris Murdoch's thinking on attention, I will develop the notion of attention across distance, and discuss the role of media, especially electronic media, in our relation to beings. Along the way I expect to say something about boredom, trauma and addiction."

Santa Fe, NM

2024-10-25

Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.

sound

mp3

English

SF_McDonaldD_Distance_Attention_and_Being_2024-10-25

M4A

00:43:08