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Re-negotiating Freedom in an Age of Limits – Part Three
In an essay calling upon artists to pursue the truths of the times we live in through honest, socio-politically responsive work, Scottish playwright David Greig argues that one of the key roles of theatre in our times is to resist ‘the management of the imagination by power’. Here, Greig paints a picture of the influence…
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UNDERSTANDING OUR DILEMMA: CAPITALISM’S PSYCHIC INVESTMENT – PART TWO
In this chapter I will explore the genealogy of the psychic investment of ‘capitalism’ through the process of capitalization[i], which I describe as a ‘technology of micropractices’. These practices are most visible in the outworkings of the operation of mass media, advertising and the culture of consumerism and represent the culmination of a deeply ambivalent…
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A call for a new political economy of attention – Part One
[i]A call for a new political economy of attention: mindfulness as a new commons Peter Doran Our corporate culture has effectively severed us from human imagination. Our electronic devices intrude deeper and deeper into spaces that were once reserved for solitude, reflection and privacy. Our airwaves are filled with the tawdry and the…
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ADDRESS TO THE ENVIRONMENT WEEK SESSION AT PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS – OPEN GOVERNMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE
22 September 2015 Nobody gets up in the morning and says to herself: ‘That’s a fine day to accelerate climate change and put the world on course for concentrations that are unprecedented in human history.’ Nobody – at least I hope – gets up in the morning and celebrates the fact that we are living…
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An Ecology of Peace Building – The Politics of Emergence
Nipun Mehta is the founder of ServiceSpace (formerly CharityFocus), an incubator of projects that works at the intersection of volunteerism, technology and gift-economy.Writing in Open Democracy (28.01.15) he – characteristically – puts his finger on the tensions invoked by the new langauge of the ‘gift economy’ once it becomes embedded within the discourses of the…
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Biopolitics, the Attention Economy and Wellbeing:In the ‘attention economy’, resistance and awareness are no longer strangers.
The Political Economy of Attention – Mindful Commons and Wellbeing When everything counts, of course you have to count everything! The drive for more comprehensive measurement is entirely consistent with the biopolitics of neoliberalism and ‘cognitive capitalism’. In the meantime it is being lauded as part of the ‘Beyond GDP’ and wellbeing agenda. Cognitive capitalism…
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Political Economy of Attention
You are welcome to comment on my draft chapters for an upcoming title, ‘Political Economy of Attention’
Peter Doran
Ireland and the Pluriverse: Ecology, Wellbeing and Constitutional Conversations
Vol.3
5am, the Beach
As long as I was on the path I walked hard, but when I came to the black beach I had to run. For the tide was now nearly flowed; and to get through with my powder dry between the surf and the steep hill, took all the quickness I possessed. As it was, even, the wash caught me to the knees, and I came near falling on a stone. All this time the hurry I was in, and the free air and smell of the sea, kept my spirits lively; but when I was once in the bush and began to climb the path I took it easier.
The fearsomeness of the wood had been a good bit rubbed off for me by Master Case’s banjo-strings and graven images, yet I thought it was a dreary walk, and guessed, when the disciples went up there, they must be badly scared. The light of the lantern, striking among all these trunks and forked branches and twisted rope-ends of lianas, made the whole place, or all that you could see of it, a kind of a puzzle of turning shadows. They came to meet you, solid and quick like giants, and then span off and vanished; they hove up over your head like clubs, and flew away into the night like birds. The floor of the bush glimmered with dead wood, the way the match-box used to shine after you had struck a lucifer. Big, cold drops fell on me from the branches overhead like sweat. There was no wind to mention; only a little icy breath of a land-breeze that stirred nothing; and the harps were silent.
Vol.3
5am, the Beach
As long as I was on the path I walked hard, but when I came to the black beach I had to run. For the tide was now nearly flowed; and to get through with my powder dry between the surf and the steep hill, took all the quickness I possessed. As it was, even, the wash caught me to the knees, and I came near falling on a stone. All this time the hurry I was in, and the free air and smell of the sea, kept my spirits lively; but when I was once in the bush and began to climb the path I took it easier.
The fearsomeness of the wood had been a good bit rubbed off for me by Master Case’s banjo-strings and graven images, yet I thought it was a dreary walk, and guessed, when the disciples went up there, they must be badly scared. The light of the lantern, striking among all these trunks and forked branches and twisted rope-ends of lianas, made the whole place, or all that you could see of it, a kind of a puzzle of turning shadows. They came to meet you, solid and quick like giants, and then span off and vanished; they hove up over your head like clubs, and flew away into the night like birds. The floor of the bush glimmered with dead wood, the way the match-box used to shine after you had struck a lucifer. Big, cold drops fell on me from the branches overhead like sweat. There was no wind to mention; only a little icy breath of a land-breeze that stirred nothing; and the harps were silent.
Summer
Vibe
The sky was so blue, and the sun so bright, that an eternal summer seemed to reign over this prospect.
Gradient
A study in light, color, and form. Created in studio with a collection of damaged lenses that I’ve acquired over the years. Each is available as a 18×24 inch giclee print on archival paper.
Peter Doran 