ARCHITECTURES OF DISTRACTION: CHANGING MODES OF PERCEPTION IN THE INFORMATION AGE

Abstract

The introduction of new media and technologies in the machine age, led to a subsequent increase in distracting elements within the metropolis sparked a critical discourse on the quality of city life. While the general discourse was negative in the judgement of distraction, Walter Benjamin contends against his contemporaries to theorise distraction as a potentially progressive force in society. He expounds on the utility of distraction in adapting metropolitans to changing contexts, postulating an active state of distraction which can be best exemplified in the perennial state through which architecture is appropriated.

As the built environment in the information age grows progressively distracting with the advancement of technologies in digital media and virtual communication networks, the discourse between attention and distraction – where distraction is perceived as an unproductive state – is in need of a radical update. This paper takes up the positive discourse of distraction, to examine the role of architecture as a distraction in the cityscape, and its aptitude to affect perceptual changes in users. In proposing a cyclical relationship between society’s contextual changes and a distracted reception in architecture, the paper will investigate tectonic changes and the corresponding modes of appropriation induced in architecture.