A few weeks ago, I was invited to be part of a panel discussion by journalist and cultural consultant Rebecca Anne Proctor to join her and arts writer and curator Anna Seaman to talk about Art in the Age of Distraction.
The talk was part of a series of creative dialogues taking place at the Avid Learning Centre for Culture and Creative Expression in Al Khayat Avenue in Al Quoz in Dubai.
Obviously, I said yes, obviously I was excited, obliviously I had a lot to say.
Distraction is the final frontier. There is no bigger topic, no greater distraction in our present day from all the incredible experiences we could be having, should be having if it wasn’t for being constantly distracted by that handheld sleek window into every corner of the universe.
While there are many ways to be distracted today, I wanted to focus on the most accessible and convenient distraction of the algorithms taking us away from the immediate, from all forms of art in our present and real world.
Yes, I know, the internet itself, from memes to content and alter egos, the whole thing is a performance piece, small works of art part of a greater museum archiving our lives. But I’m not going to get into that debate, defining what art is, because it will turn into a running series that no one has time for – and if I’m being frank, I have no interest in discussing anymore.
My interest and concern at the talk, of which I want to elaborate in this essay, is art in the present and physical world. Right here and now be it in an art gallery, museum, movie theatre, the stage, pages of a novel, this is where we are losing.
We have lost the art of being with a work of art, wholly and completely in tune with it for longer than a few moments. No, it’s not enough to fleetingly engage with work, and yes, I very much blame our phones.
I don’t want to define what art is, but I’m happy to define what distraction is.
Distraction, and distraction from the arts, isn’t a 21st century problem. It wasn’t born when we conveniently found the internet a swipe and few taps away.
Distraction has been an ever-present dark force seducing humanity away from whatever was deemed ethical and moral across a many cultures and eras.
Art was considered a distraction from religion, family, and work. There are many fables and tales whose moral foundation is based on the idea of being distracted by power, beauty, fame and riches. Here distraction was a sin, punishable by the loss of love, of all that we hold precious, of the things that make us human.
Photography was a distraction from painting, radio from reading, film a distraction from books. In the Matrix films, we live in an assimilation, in the greatest of distractions.
Distraction is one of the oldest concepts in existence. It only feels incredibly pertinent now, because it is aggressively prevalent. There is no other recorded time in history where distraction is accessible to us at any second, any moment of the day or night.
With all that in mind, my definition is straight forward. True distraction is the thing, anything, that takes us out of the present moment.
If I’m having a conversation with somebody over dinner, is my phone flipped up or is it flipped over?
If I’m watching a film, do I pick up my phone and search for one of the actors on IMDB?
If I’m reading, do I keep looking over at my phone to see if someone has messaged me?
If the present falls into the periphery, transforms into an illusion because of blue light and pixels, distraction becomes the destruction of a moment that should be sacred in the ritual of experiencing art.
Yes, experiencing art is a ritual, a moment that can feel absolutely transformative.
I recently did a video about how to make time to read. And I said there, what I’ll write now. The answer is simple but hard. We need to put our phones on silent and away from us.
We need to give our mind, our imagination, ourselves some space away from the thing, the dangerous and wonderful thing that that drags us down the ultimate rabbit hole.
Yes, I know, we are but human beings, designed to be distracted by pretty, shiny things. There was Eve and the apple and now there is us and our phones, us and the memes.
The internet, our phones, can do some wonderful, glorious, amazing things. But we need to conjure the discipline, train our minds to ignore those wonderful, glorious, amazing things, and put our phones down and away.
We are up against giants, this I know, engineers of distraction who understand and continue to refine the art of gamifying every element of our interaction with the internet, grooming us for addiction.
And now, it’s our greatest spiritual warfare, the struggle for self-mastery, to put down our phones and experience present reality.
Call me naïve, but the truth is when it comes to art that if the experience, be it painting, sculpture, novel, film, a play, if the art is good, if you are engaged and are connected with a story, you will not think about your phone.
You will not be distracted.
This puts great pressure on artists. But what inspiring, time defying works of art that baffle our consciousness, set our senses ablaze, than the great works of geniuses, made through pressure.
Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, Frida Kahlo’s whole legacy, George Orwell’s 1984, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Virgina Wolf’s Mrs Dallaway, Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier – I could go on.
We are on the precipice of a great war for attention. It is a battle to maintain the balance of true storytelling, one that has two sums – the storyteller and the audience.
If the audience is being whisked away from stories, a core means through which we navigate and exist in this world, because of distraction we need to as artists to work harder to make good art. Yes the pressure is and should be great, but we can meet it.
Artists themselves are of course audiences, and I don’t discount myself from the temptation of distraction. I’m still figuring it out.
My godson grabbed my arm and shook it when we he was showing me a mini camera on a key chain that prints “actual real photos” that he was gifted on a recent trip to Japan.
“You’re not listening to me. I’m talking. You’re looking at your phone, or you’re talking to whoever.”
This was a moment that felt deeper than the instantaneous guilt clawing at me. I realized, and these realizations are embarrassingly obvious, that beyond missing out on art, we are missing out on actual life, small moments, core memories, all of which fuel, feed art and our reading of it.
Mindfulness is key. When someone tells you with their words, actions or non-actions, that you aren’t with them it’s time to reassess, what really matters.
When I was a child rushing my chores, my homework, a meal down my throat so I can read my books or go out and play, my parents always said the same thing in different ways.
“The sun will be there tomorrow; your books will still be her later. They won’t disappear. Don’t rush, don’t ignore. Do it right no matter how long it takes.”
The internet will be here tomorrow, memes will be there later. They won’t disappear. Let’s not rush art, let’s not ignore life, no matter how long it takes, because in truth, life is too short to be distracted.