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George Burdon

@georgeburdon.bsky.social

120 followers 240 following 3 posts

Cultural geographer at UNSW Canberra. Working on sound, affect, culture, attention.

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Reposted by George Burdon

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 14d

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...

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Reposted by George Burdon

Area @areajournal.bsky.social · Jul 17

#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.

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George Burdon @georgeburdon.bsky.social · May 21

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

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George Burdon @georgeburdon.bsky.social · Feb 24

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

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George Burdon @georgeburdon.bsky.social · Feb 19

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