Sustained collective silent attention can be choreographed by shared protocols

Evidence

A number of folks in the Friends of Attention coalition first met each other through the underground collective of radical attentionauts known as the “Order of the Third Bird”—a loose and longstanding network of free spirits who gather in irregular mini-flashmobs before various paintings, sculptures, and other charismatic objects. Once assembled, the participants in the “Action” simply attend to whatever is before them, together and in silence—sometimes for very long periods of time (“vigil” practices of the Birds can go all night). Their collective attention is choreographed by a set of protocols that guides the mood and pace and pattern of the encounter—something like a musical score, which the group “plays” together, where the notes are attentional modes. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 381

Categorization

• DEFINE: Presents the Order of the Third Bird and the ‘Action’ practice as a working instance of the book’s proposed organizational form: protocol-scored collective attention.
• XREF: Recalls the silencing/collective-attention themes from the soundscape and silence literature—communal rituals keyed to attention rather than speech. — connects to: The silence function of the machine works by delegitimizing dissent in advance — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 688
• CANDY: Oddball fact worth recounting: a real ‘Order of the Third Bird’ runs all-night silent attention vigils before paintings, with protocol scores where the notes are attentional modes.