George Burdon
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georgeburdon.bsky.social
George Burdon
@georgeburdon.bsky.social
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Cultural geographer at UNSW Canberra. Working on sound, affect, culture, attention.
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Reposted by George Burdon
joegerlach.bsky.social
Spinoza's Geographical Ethics - out now, open access in e-book form: edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-spinoza... @edinburghup.bsky.social
Spinoza's Geographical Ethics
Spinoza's Geographical Ethics
edinburghuniversitypress.com
October 14, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Reposted by George Burdon
lrb.co.uk
Worth reading alongside Claire Wilmot’s new piece, ‘Fascistic Dream Machines’, on the far right’s use of AI video:

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...
September 25, 2025 at 10:24 PM
Reposted by George Burdon
areajournal.bsky.social
#OpenAccess in Area:

'Displaced attention: Bergson, attentive habits and Tony Conrad's drone music' by @georgeburdon.bsky.social

This paper explores the intimate links between attention and the different material environments of everyday life.

doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by George Burdon (2025) entitled 'Displaced attention: Bergson, attentive habits and Tony Conrad's drone music' with a black banner at the top. Attention has emerged as an important issue in the social sciences and humanities in recent years. Much influential work characterises our era as one in which our attention is increasingly placed under stress, seeking to unpack the consequences of such a state of affairs for our capacities to think. This paper turns to the work of Henri Bergson to offer a distinctly geographic perspective on such debates by emphasising the intimate links between attention and the material environments of everyday life. Thinking through Bergson, the paper suggests that some environments enrol a greater degree of our attention in routine actions, leaving us more in thrall to the repetitive sensory and cognitive solicitations of each present moment, while others are more amenable to a displacement of attention away from such demands, prising open time and space for creative thought and action. As a way of exploring the latter, the paper explores the potential of music—specifically, the drone music of Tony Conrad—to create environments of displaced attentiveness. Through the use of single tones sustained over long durations, often at high volumes, Conrad's performances aimed to create a space in which an audience's everyday habits of attention were suspended. Approaching Conrad's music through Bergson suggests that what emerges in the displacement of attention through drone music is a feeling for the powers of time that the teeming activity of each present moment requires we habitually ignore.
July 17, 2025 at 9:11 AM
georgeburdon.bsky.social
Just published:

Thinking about the relations between attention and environment by way of Henri Bergson and drone music.

Open access in @areajournal.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1111/area...
Area | RGS Geography Journal | Wiley Online Library
This paper turns to the work of Henri Bergson to offer a distinctly geographic perspective on debates around attention by emphasising the intimate links between attention and the material environment...
doi.org
May 21, 2025 at 4:49 AM
georgeburdon.bsky.social
New paper from me - a Geography Compass piece on sound art geographies:

compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Sound Art Geographies: Listening at the Limits of Audibility
This paper explores the generative yet underexamined relation between human geography and sound art. Sound art has long been concerned with issues of spatiality, place and environment and yet interes....
compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
February 24, 2025 at 1:03 AM
georgeburdon.bsky.social
A few days left to contribute to our proposed session on the geographies of attention at this year's RGS-IBG conference in Birmingham. Cfp and details of where to send an abstract below. Deadline Friday!

@rgsibg.bsky.social
February 19, 2025 at 5:19 AM