Continual Partial Awareness

“This performance is going to be about ‘Continuous Partial Awareness‘ — a phrase that was first described to me as meaning ‘you know, like, when you have 3 IM windows open, 2 email inboxs dinging away, are txting 5 different people, and also have 5 tabs open on your browser, each with updated content.’ It is about paying attention to everything all the time, but not really concentrating on anything. It is different from multitasking, because with multitasking, one actually is expected to concentrate on tasks at some point, even if in small doses.
Continuous Partial Awareness is the eroded degenerate modern version of multitasking. I still don’t know how this performance will take shape, it might be a lecture, a music show, a broadcast, a chess game, etc, etc, but what I do know is that the feeling of ‘non-concentration’ that has seeped into today’s life through our flat screen displays and wifi will be its starting point.”

(Cory Arcangel)