Two days of lectures and films at Dispersions seminar

The Dispersions seminar leads us into the festival week on Monday, September 21 & Tuesday, September 22, at KIC (Culture and Information Center). The two-day event brings several lectures and film programmes, alongside a workshop, all delving into the 'phenomena of scattered attention'. All the programmes will be in English.

The two-day seminar Dispersions: Phenomena of Dispersed Attention is envisioned as a space of encounter, exchange and joined examination of the changed regimes of observing in audiovisual art and contemporary culture. It is scheduled for 21 and 22 September at KIC (Culture and Information Centre) in Zagreb. The seminar brochure, including detailed information about the programming, is available for download here. Admission is free.

Monday, September 21

The first day of Dispersions starts at 10 am with a short introduction, followed by a lecture at 10.30 am by Ante Jerić, A Brief History of Attention. Jerić will analyse the history of human attention, from anthropoid apes to media algorithms, on the example of works by Michael Tomasello, Joseph Henrich, Jonathan Beller and Yves Citton. Ante Jerić is a post-doctoral fellow at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Rijeka, whose research focuses on the philosophy of mind, aesthetics and theory of narration.

At 11.30 am the first film lecture follows – Digital Attention Loops, curated by the film scholar and artistic director of the international short film festival Vienna Shorts, Max Bergmann. On a series of examples of different 21st century film methods, including computer technologies, image errors or narrative adaptations to the non-linear nature of the internet, the lecture will show how film can position itself among uncontrolled technological changes.

In the afternoon part of the seminar, at 3 pm, theatre and performance artist Barbara Matijević will present her long-term project Attention Laboratory, which approaches attention as a collective practice and an act of political resistance to the industry of immense technological and financial power. As part of Dispersions, the artist will hold a unique workshop, Seeing Before Naming, which is designed to introduce the basic principles of attention activism, through conversation, exchange and experiential exercises.

To end the day, at 4 pm, we will be treated to a film program selected by the Sarajevo Film Festival, Attention as Action. It presents all aspects of attention as an active cognitive and perceptual process, both in the act of creating meaning and in the act of perception, taking the shape of personal rebellion, freedom, escape but also reflection on the past.

Tuesday, September 22

The second day of Dispersions opens at 10 am with writer and curator Federico Windhausen, also a member of this year’s Grand Jury, with a film lecture under the title Stop, Look and Listen. He will explore the ways in which audiovisual media direct, guide and hold our attention, including films of a playful and didactic nature, as well as television quiz shows, experimental and underground film, early video art and educational films.

Julian Hanich, professor of film studies at the University of Groningen, will give a lecture at 12 pm, Undistracted: On Cinema’s Promise of Deep Attention. In it, he will advocate for the enduring importance of cinema as a vital cultural practice and social institution, especially in an age of increasingly scattered attention. He will address the phenomenon he calls “shared deep attention”, which is specific to the collective act of viewing in cinemas.

At 2 pm, the Dispersions film programme selected by the 25 FPS Festival will be screened. In order to study what happens to our attention when it wanders, when it resists and gets lost, we will show films that deal with the issue of (the economy of) attention in the contemporary viewer, in the form of monologues, navigation devices, natural and yet illusory environments, travelogues and archival inventions. The seminar will conclude after the film program, at 3.40 pm, with a final discussion.