A secretive collective undertakes ritualized attentional performances

Evidence

It is perhaps in tribute to this oratory dimension inherent in the experimentations of our aesthetic laboratories that an international collective – whose precise origins and real extent remain quite mysterious – gets together intermittently at various places around the world to develop attentional exercises under the auspices of the enigmatic Order of the Third Bird. Its members have assigned themselves the double and complementary mission of actively cultivating their attentional capabilities while nourishing through their active contemplation a work that they think suffers from a lack of attention. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 437

Categorization

• QUESTION: The Order of the Third Bird appears partly real, partly speculative — worth chasing whether it actually exists.
• CANDY: A mysterious group gathering for 30 minutes to 24 hours in front of neglected paintings is a genuinely delightful fact.
• SEED: Could anchor an essay on attention as devotional practice or on secret societies built around contemplation.
• FICTION: The Order of the Third Bird is an almost ready-made premise for fiction — a secret guild whose work is attention itself.
• XREF: connects to: People can pay attention to something while being unaware they are attending to it — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 361

Broader Connections

• People can pay attention to something while being unaware they are attending to it #expands (0.75) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 361