Joanna Holman @joannaholman@aus.social
Public

Came across this striking art piece in Bourke St Mall, called Paid Attention by Huei Yin Wong. It’s designed to comment on the way the advertising industry profits from constantly taking our attention at no benefit to us. If you sit making unbroken eye contact with the messages about our attention choices on the screen, it pays out the equivalent of minimum wage for the time watched. Sitting there conspicuously staring at something silly in public for even less than 2 minutes was weirdly unsettling even though we’re constantly looking at silly stuff on screens

A screen that says paid attention. In front of the screen is a blocky uncomfortable chair A label that says paid attention HUEI YIN WONG THE AVERAGE PERSON SEES AROUND 6,000 ADS A DAY. PUBLIC SPACE IS SATURATED WITH MESSAGES ENGINEERED TO CAPTURE ATTENTION FOR PROFIT. PAID ATTENTION FLIPS THIS EXCHANGE, BRINGING TRANSPARENCY TO THE TRANSACTION. IT EXPLORES HOW ATTENTION IS COMMODIFIED THROUGH A SCREEN FITTED WITH AN EYE-TRACKING CAMERA THAT PAYS VIEWERS MINIMUM WAGE FOR THEIR GAZE. IF OUR LIVES ARE SHAPED BY WHERE WE PAY ATTENTION, HOW MUCH IS IT WORTH?A receipt that says paid attention city of Melbourne test sites. Time sold 1 min 16 seconds. Your earnings $0.53 thank you for paying attention we will see you again. A claim QR code is obscured
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Stefan Ihringer @compfu@mograph.social
Public

RE: aus.social/@joannaholman/11560

I love these kinds of art installations. 20 years ago I did an internship at a design agency in Stuttgart and they did stuff for museum exhibits for example. But there were a few artsy students in that company's "orbit" that pointed me to exhibitions for video and multimedia art like that.

One time, the "pain station" was on display. It was a simple pong video game but whenever you lost you got a slight electric shock or your hand got whipped by a spinning piece of string :-)

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