Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today

by Claire Bishop

How technology and the politics of attention changed the way we look at art

The ways we encounter contemporary art and performance has changed. How are we expectedto engage with today's diverse practice? Is the old model of close-looking still the ideal, or has itgiven way to browsing, skimming, and sampling?

Across four provocative and insightful essays, art historian and critic Claire Bishop identifies trends in contemporary practice. Charting a critical path through the last three decades, Bishop pinpoints how spectatorship and visual literacy are evolving under the pressures of digital technology.

She explores how researched-based exhibitions have proliferated turning the artist into an investigator or archivist with mixed results. Spatial performance can now involve the artist, dancers, or even the audience as participants, often framed with Instagram in mind. The political event is not longer activated without an understanding of the media that will record and distribute it. The proliferation of works that use modernist architecture is noticeable; but has this become a shorthand for something else?

Disordered Attention is a vital survey of 21st century art, from one of the leading art thinkers ofour times.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Art History, Theory, Architecture, Contemporary

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2024

Reviews

[Nat]

My parents came to visit us and we went to see a performance of some classical music (including Mozart's 20th piano concerto). We had seats in the back of a box and for the first part of the performance there was a woman in front of us whose perfume was so strong that we could taste it, and then she was replaced by an old man with a cane that he loudly dropped on the ground who loudly rustled packs of goldfish that he loudly crunched; each time we felt relieved that he had finished one pack he stuck his hand in his coat and produced another—I think he ate through four packs during the performance. My dad was really annoyed by this (my mom was more annoyed by the perfume). When they were complaining about it afterward, I told them that they wouldn't like this book that I'm reading, which says that the hyper-focused, silent, attentive style of looking and listening is a late 19th century invention whose time has gone—now is a time of divided inattention, where we look things up on our phones, take pictures of paintings and performances, and generally stop thinking we need to give art objects or performances our undivided attention (which is ableist anyway).

Modern spectatorship, premised on fully focussed presence and deep attention, no longer seems appropriate or necessary (6)

My parents really didn't like that idea (they also complained about everyone taking pictures in the museums we went to, instead of stopping and looking at the art). I think this is indeed an idea worth defending, even if I think it's wrong to give up too easily—I like TJ Clark's remark that “I think writers about art should try harder before admitting defeat” when analyzing artworks and their reactions to them (Clark 2008, p. 118). (Admittedly that's in a book where Clark spends several months in one room in the Getty looking at two Poussin paintings, which is a tough standard to live up to!)

***Reread January 9, 2025—I'm working on a longer review of this***

[Rickie Poole · Rating 4 out of 5]

listen. i get that books like this that rely so heavily on theory and the abstract are intimidating and can be hard to read, i definitely got lost in the weeds a few times with this book. but the subject of attention and how it’s changed over the decades and then in turn how we interact with art and performance is fascinating.
there are moments where Bishop looses me slightly only because art and art history are not strong points of mine, especially contemporary performative art. but Bishop dives deep into social and political connotations of how we think of attention and distraction and is it a bad thing that our attention spans have changed and how does change how we interact with art and performances in different spaces.
her later chapter looking at the differences of political activism and art intervention were probably my favorite bits of the whole book. i would absolutely recommend this book to anyone but keep in mind it’s all theory


“The two terms are not a matter of individual subjective capacities: will power versus coercion, agency versus weakness, intense focus versus dispersed gaze, and so on. Rather, attention and distraction are cultural constructs emerging from a set of tacitly agreed norms and values. Distraction is not opposed to attention but is a type of attention – it’s not individual and intrinsic but social and relational.”

[Rafael Borrego · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro funciona como un termómetro preciso de los cambios que atraviesan el arte contemporáneo en la era de las redes sociales. Claire Bishop no solo observa, sino que diagnostica cómo han mutado los modos de mirar, participar y producir arte en un mundo saturado de imágenes y pantallas.

La autora despliega con claridad tres grandes líneas de análisis: la transformación de la atención en tiempos de hiperconectividad, el auge del arte investigativo como forma expandida del archivo, y la performance contemporánea que no teme volverse viral. A todo esto, suma una reflexión lúcida sobre las intervenciones artísticas en el espacio público como gestos estratégicos de impacto instantáneo.

Lejos de la nostalgia por una mirada concentrada, Bishop describe cómo la atención hoy es múltiple, fragmentada y distribuida. Desde el cubo blanco hasta el scroll infinito, el libro propone pensar el arte no como un refugio del recogimiento, sino como un terreno atravesado por flujos de información, circulación digital y experiencias híbridas.

Atención trastornada es una lectura imprescindible para comprender cómo las redes sociales no solo transforman la recepción del arte, sino su misma configuración estética, material y política.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew next to nothing about art and now I know a bit more—how much I retain is tbd.

Bishop looks at the impact of the internet (and social media) and how it has hybridized how we consume art. That is to say, experiencing art today means that our attention is drawn in multiple ways and this includes collectively either with others in person or on our phones/on the web/etc. Artists anticipate and respond to this hybrid attention, constantly creating art that is informed by and informs the times that we’re in.

The writing is remarkably clear and easy to follow, which is good because I only knew about a handful of the example artists and art pieces that Bishop uses, so I had to learn a lot in 200 pages.

[Brooke Bowlin]

I love art! 🥲

“Attention is not a volitional state of focus that exists in opposition to distraction, but is a collective phenomenon. It is structured for us by a situation and a set of external conditions (the work of art, performance, exhibition, concert, webpage, social environment), which in turn encounter our internal predispositions and desires. We can therefore analyse how any given work of art attempts to steer and structure our attention - but this success is never guaranteed, and is contingent upon the audience (who may have competing impulses) and the context (poor acoustics, humidity, crowds). As a result, there is no 'ideal viewer', only a flow of possible approximations.”

[Calla · Rating 4 out of 5]

fuck ai
but no i appreciated the approach this book took, how it did not entirely demonise the internet but how it has now become part of the audience in modern art

[Yasemin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Next time I am faced with a research-based artwork, I will be asking: is this work omitting authorial pointers to allow my attention to move freely while still providing intellectual guidance to ensure I am making connections?
Next time I am watching a performance exhibition, I will be observing the hybrid spectatorship of attention that flows from the present into the online while the artist (potentially) caters to the cameras through photographable visuals.
Next time I encounter an artistic intervention, I will wonder whether the artist’s aim materialized in the discussion of their work on social media. Was the risk worth it?

Amazing read!

[Fizzah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oscar Wilde in his essay “The Critic As Artist” suggests that art is not (and should not be?) a hermetic space, but instead shaped by its audiences. Bishop shifts this perspective to the present where social media and new technologies have become prostheses with which to view art.

I have tended to think about contemporary art as a mass, so Bishop’s categories proved helpful in approaching it and understanding how different genres are confronting our attention crises. The historian in me appreciated the discussion on how cultural spaces like the museum and theater have changed, and how our expectation for undivided attention might be new.

Unfortunate that the connection to attention/technology wanes in the later parts of the book. A thorough but dense read one has to approach wanting to learn about contemporary art first and foremost.

[La_pena_negra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Se me hizo eterno este libro. Cosas que me encantaron los pies de páginas a cantidades absurdos, cosas q me desencantaron las razones por las que quería leerme el libro no fueron cubiertas, pensaba que se trataría los temas desde unos puntos más relacionados a la tecnología y al arte de acción pero… no mucho o no como me hubieran gustado. El final ya fue un flop porque se alejaba cada vez más de la que me interesaba. Igualmente es muy interesante hay datos muy interesantes…pero me ha costado mucho terminarlo

[Madeleine Signore · Rating 5 out of 5]

that feeling when you read just the right book at just the right time

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the excerpt that Artforum published and was intrigued. Bishop describes four overarching tendencies that she sees in recent contemporary art: the proliferation of research-based art installations; the explosion of performance within the white cube of the museum/gallery; the artistic “intervention” as a grass-roots, independent (i.e. non-commissioned) phenomenon bound up by precise opportune political timing; and the Euro-American obsession with invoking modernist architecture.

Each chapter focuses on one of these tendencies, and she provides numerous examples of artists, artworks, performances and events to argue for their development alongside the sociocultural contexts and technological innovations of their time.

The art and greater culture industries thrive on novelty and chasing trends, so I appreciated her clear analysis of these overarching tendencies that are expressed in divergent practices, materials, and aesthetics.

I was hesitant about the inclusion of the fourth tendency (the invocation of modernist architecture). While she makes a decent case and provides many examples, it felt a bit more like she was cherry-picking the specific reference of modernist architecture when it could have been extrapolated out into an argument about, say, the invocation of historical traumas on the part of contemporary artists to critique the 20th century liberal world order, or historical revisionism and/or recovery of 20th century avant gardes on the part of curators and institutions writ large (I think about Tate Modern’s Surrealism Beyond Borders and the Walker Art Center’s International Pop exhibitions as two examples).

Anyway, I know that those are different projects than what she set out to do, I guess I just felt like the modernist chapter was less satisfying to me personally.

Worth the read if you care about where art has been in the last few decades and where it might go.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bishop loves categories and one often wonders: why?

[RITA · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting. I dont love her writing, as it is too academic for me and she seems sometimes more concerned in exposing her method than in raising questions. But it’s a good read for anyone interested in the subject and also presents you with very interesting new work. I was a bit confused with the last chapter regarding to how it related to the theme of attention, even though it raised other important issues regarding community spaces and contemporary mode of living.

[Micaela Bass · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m always intrigued by literature that takes a scholarly approach to art analysis and criticism. Maggie Nelson’s books that take a focus on art criticism (I consider two of her books to fit this bill—she has interestingly called her dissertation Women, The New York School, and Other True Abstractions un-scholarly, and my favorite of her books, The Art of Cruelty) remain my favorite books on this sort of analysis. When this book was published last summer, I was immediately interested in the premise. The meditation of how audiences today interact with art—performance art, particularly—was one that I hadn’t considered, and I was eager to learn Bishop’s thoughts.

Disordered Attention left me with many thought provoking highlights and bookmarks, which have all been a joy to revisit. I found that the introductory essay was the most erudite and focused on the title (and summary) of the book. Many of the ideas and questions she floated I wished were expanded on in a way that was directly related to how modern attention spans (“…normative attention assumes a normative subject – privileged, white, straight, able-bodied, volitional – who confers his attention onto an exteriority thereby constituted as an object.” “When we refer to people as ‘distracted’ (for example, by social media), it’s a way of saying that we think their attention is in the wrong place.”). Deeper into the book, Bishop continues showing suggestions of brilliant thoughts that I didn’t think got the exploration that they deserved (“We need to be careful what we wish for: at one pole, the presentation of information without an authorial voice or position; at the other, a position that can’t be contested, only agreed with.”). I would’ve loved to have gone deeper into these subjects. While Bishop is clearly intelligent and obviously well versed on the art she wrote of, her art analysis fell flat for me as I often failed to see her chosen works as being relevant to the topic at hand.

I overall enjoyed Disordered Attention and always appreciate a more challenging read. It’s somewhat rare for books of this nature to come out that don’t focus on trendy art topics such as how to divorce art from its artist (already an admittedly tired and boring subject). Bishop is an erudite art historian with an indisputable knowledge of the artworks she wrote about. I look forward to other books she writes in the future.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very smart book about changing modes of spectatorship that updates ideas about attention and distraction addressed by writers like Jonathon Crary. I particularly liked the first two chapters on research-based art and performance. I read earlier versions of these chapters in art journals but they are furthered developed here.

Bishop has an extremely light touch that enables her to very insightfully weave together art and ideas drawn from extensive research. Her explanations of ideas are admirably precise and concise. A total pleasure to read!

The third chapter theorising interventions is an acute identification of a type of practice that hasn't been identified so clearly.

I would have given this book 5 stars but the last chapter on what Bishop calls the invocation of modern architecture and design was not as sharp as the others. Students often use the term "reference" instead of "invocation," both curious terms for this return/gesture. James Meyer's book The art of return might have been useful here for thinking about return. Nonetheless a well-identified tendency, I'm just not as convinced by the reading of it as a kind of cipher for lost western supremacy.

[aloose · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve my problems with this book, most centrally the ironically diffuse and distractedness of Bishop’s attention to her own arguments as suggested in the introduction/title; the general haziness at which she describes the land between one point and the next — something shrouded by her own techno-optimist polemics (which, frustratingly, only feature as some sort of half handed add-on). The essays themselves ranged from just nearly brilliant (“Deja-Vu”) to somewhat empty, while the introduction was more of the same sort of self-celebratory postmodern antipostmodernism adored by too-smart-for-you academics that refuses to make points rather than snark and intentionally misrepresent. I mean come on, what in the world was that pitiful “takedown” of definitional attention supposed to do / heighten in this context? This is the sort of thing that should make discerning readers not take you seriously. I was really expecting a lot from this, and got a good deal of frustration and near-epiphany for my troubles…

I may return at a later date where the techno-optimism doesn’t feel so grating and dated.

[sarah mcGonagle · Rating 4 out of 5]

“…attention and distraction are cultural constructs emerging from a set of tacitly agreed norms and values. Distraction is not opposed to attention but is a type of attention - it’s not individual and intrinsic but social and relational.”

“Modern spectatorship, premised on fully focused presence and deep attention, no longer seems appropriate or necessary.”

This is a delightfully lucid look at contemporary art and our attention!!! what spectatorship is, how attention has changed, and why not all of it is necessarily a bad thing. i found bishop's refusal to denigrate those whose attention is, well, distracted to be so refreshing amongst a lot of emerging interpretative scholarship, art history, philosophy, etc., that i find tends to take a holier-than-thou or defeatist attitude. Our attention has changed, and that is worth getting curious about without moralizing judgments precluding or clouding that exploration (i have to remind myself of this)

[SY · Rating 5 out of 5]

[4.5 stars] Love her writing style, and love the works she cited. I don't think she was saying oh look spectatorship has changed let's all make works that serve this new normal. She is saying, look, there are all of these other more social definitions of liveness out there now, which, actually aren't new at all, because, horizontal attention is the lived experience, that's how the world reveals itself to us and opera was for small talks and eavesdropping. We'd gotten so used to the modern concert halls and cinemas that we forget that they are the exceptions. Now they'd also become museums of modes of spectatorship, and we mostly leave them alone.

I read the Tatlin Tower chapter first because I needed it for something else, so I ended up reading the thing in reverse order. I am glad I did that because imo the introduction gave away too much.

[Janina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Interesting, really liked it. A bit structured/written like a sciene paper sometimes, though. I also would have added some things that were added in the 'Notes' section, mostly 11. from 3 Seizing the Moment: Interventions, where the Asian terminology was named and 15. from 4 Déjá Vu: Invoking Modernist Architecture and Design where there's a passage with a really cool quote.
I do think this would definitely need an update soon-ish (things are changing already) because it's balancing on the edge of being timely and in the current zeitgeist.

[Allison T · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was really helpful as I conceptualize a proposal for my art and the public sphere class that revolves around focused art viewing. It helped me break away from the binary that focused consumption of art is good and distraction, or, as Bishop reframes it, disordered forms of attention, are bad. I loved the discussion of black and white boxes in performance spaces and galleries, along with research as an art form (which ties into Bishop’s investigations in Radical Museplogy nicely. Reading theory like this is helping me grow my courage to critique/discuss art myself!

[Remi · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was interesting getting a peak into the world of art critique and analysis. For me, reading this book was like accidentally stepping into the wrong class at university and then staying to see what it’s about. Unfortunately, I hated the class.

My initial interest in the concept - how smartphones and social media are impacting how and what we pay attention to in art and performance - was quickly extinguished by Bishop’s insanely academic prose. There were far too many page long paragraphs and somehow far too much time spent citing sources. It was dry and hard to follow.

[Imanol Basurto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considero que cumple en realizar un balance y una genealogía de las prácticas artísticas de los últimos treinta años. Algunas posturas, como el entusiasmo de Claire Bishop por el uso de celular en medio de performances de larga duración, me parecen cuestionables y aún así provocadoras.

Imperdibles los ensayos sobre investigación artística e intervenciones artísticas en el espacio público que, como hace bien en señalar la autora, son géneros contemporáneos poco explorados.

[Belinda Morén · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for everyone!

“…attention and distraction are cultural constructs emerging from a set of tacitly agreed norms and values. Distraction is not opposed to attention but is a type of attention - it’s not individual and intrinsic but social and relational.”

“Modern spectatorship, premised on fully focussed presence and deep attention, no longer seems appropriate or necessary.”

[Alejandro Abad · Rating 3 out of 5]

No estaba yo para un ensayo de este tipo ahora mismo. El inicio es denso de cojones. Me gusta mucho la narración que hace de cómo las perfomances empiezan a invadir los museos y tal xddd Pero no era mi momento de leerme este libro, definitivamente. Es bastante probable que se le de otra chance en un par de años.

[Rachel Mehling · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intellectual (i am)

[Nicopsetzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best and most lucid art history books I’ve read about contemporary art. How long it took me to read this relatively brief endeavor reinforced the book’s observations.

[Julio César · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siempre es un placer leer a Bishop, una lectura comprometida y una escritura fácil, sin rodeos, sobre asuntos que podrían ser mucho más espinosos en el arte contemporáneo.

[Céline Denis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely very insightful but the structure of the book felt a little incohesive; would’ve loved more development of the digital aspect in the final chapter. Looking forward to reading reviews

[Sergey Babkin]

skuchniamba

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

libro che dovrebbe leggere qualunque artista.
alcune volte va off topic e si dilunga un pochino su certe cose, ma ne vale la pena