The morning was spent WordPress theme wrangling again, frustratingly, and after an hour or so of that I re-read the chapter in Throughout that discusses attention. I’d been meaning to go back to it since October, because it offers up ways of thinking about attention that are helpful and relevant to my practice. Arvidson’s ideas about spheres of attention is a useful way of avoiding the ‘spotlight’ model of attention that is prevalent in the current work.
The research seminar today was a field trip to the Hepworth in Wakefield to see the Linda Benglis show. Parts of it were interesting, but overall I wasn’t overwhelmed by it. There was a great Toby Ziegler piece there that made up for the Benglis’s lack.
The Transmission lecture today was by Rory Pilgrim, and I enjoyed his measured and well thought through delivery and work. Pilgrim’s work creates a valuable contrast to Andrew Conio’s Occupy-based activism, which sits in and says “everything needs to change”. Instead, Pilgrim uses the power of words to persuade, quietly, rather than shouting. Is this a more effective method of activism, or is it too polite, too deferential to the establishment?
After post-lecture chats at Site Gallery, the evening was spent making a concerted approach to WordPress theme endgame. There are only one or two small changes to now be made before I can populate the site with data and replace the old one with it.