Our attention has operated as currency for the past couple of decades, but with the invasiveness of social media and technology, our ability to exit and enter the attention economy has been severely hindered. As we feel pressure to post and comment on everything for an unknown audience, do we inherently limit our capacity for complexity and vulnerability? And what are the extended ramifications of becoming illiterate in complexity? How does this ripple out into all of our relationships?

In lieu of the demanding world buzzing inside our devices, guest Jenny Odell shares the brilliance of doing “nothing”, tending to the ecological self, and growing deeper forms of attention through a commitment to bioregionalism. We begin our conversation looking at how the attention economy takes on a new meaning in the digital age and the anxiety we experience in a consumer-driven society. Acknowledging the privilege of being able to rebuke all technology, Jenny moves us into an understanding of “refusal-in-place”, where if we are unable to remove ourselves from this economy, we can still find creative ways to resist it and develop practices that alter our perspective and encourage us to listen and observe the complexity of the world around us. 

Jenny Odell is a writer, artist, and enthusiastic birdwatcher based in Oakland, California. She is the author of How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Odell teaches digital art at Stanford University and has been an artist in residence at the San Francisco Planning Department, the Internet Archive, and Recology SF (otherwise known as the dump).

♫ The music featured in this episode is “Beam” by Harrison Foster, “Bird Lady” by Harrison Foster, “Mississippi Broad” by Bosques Fragmentados, “To The Birds” by Samara Jade, and “Where The Birds Are” by Kritzkom.

Episode References

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell

Why Birds Do What They Do by Jenny Odell

The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

Veronica Barassi

Pauline Oliveros

Chappell Hayes

iNaturalist

Jenny’s Recommendations

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris

One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka

Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World by David Abram

Leaning Into the Wind: Andy Goldsworthy (2017)

Winged Migration (2001)

Action Points from Jenny

“These are East Bay specific, but…”

Pay Shummi Land Tax 

Donate to People’s Breakfast Oakland

Become a member of the California Native Plant Society

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