Attention as an extractive industry.
Attention Seekers is an ongoing creative coding , critical software, and motion design workshop and creative studio research inquiry. The compositions aim to blur the distinction between attention and distraction; embodying a critical design framework that foregrounds contraints and critiquing digital workflows and process itself.
One motif of this exercise is: “doing a lot with a little.” Each of the creative coding compositions is designed and built by hand. Leveraging entry-level creative coding languages and frameworks, namely HTML5 and CSS3, the visual research uses precedent from biology, particularly cuttlefish and the Superb Bird of Paradise, as well as historical precedent in human-computer interactions and interaction design, particularly After Dark 2.0 by Berkeley Systems ().
These design interventions aim to achieve a sort of meditative enrapture, while also critically engaging with the contested histories and epistemes of digital workspaces, workflows, formats, and incompatabilities.
The goal is to put the viewer/user/visitor/reader/scroller/feeder into a trance (not to give them a seizure!).