(David McDonald) Distance, Attention, and Being: Thinking About Media

DEAN'S LECTURE SERIES Aura, for critic Walter Benjamin, is the authenticity and uniqueness of the work of art, its situation in time and space. For natural beings, the equivalent is what Benjamin calls distance. The distance of the tree, the bird, the mountain—or the human person—is its independence and stature, its unassimilable being. A medium brings things closer, diminishes the distance of beings; this is much of Benjamin's concern in his consideration of photography as a medium, as a means of "mechanical reproduction." Invoking Simone Weil's and Iris Mur-doch's thinking on attention, I will develop the notion of attention across dis-tance, and discuss the role of media, especially electronic media, in our relation to beings. Along the way I expect to say something about boredom, trauma, and addiction.