DISTRACTION plugs into the streaming torrent of content and the places our brains go when we want to focus on anything but the thing. You know… the thing you’re supposed to be doing right now? Your distraction of choice might be scrolling, daydreaming or exploring a digital universe. Where are we escaping to? What are we missing in the process? Confusion reigns, disinformation spreads and the truth is called into question. Attention becomes profit-driven, and it is hard to know who is really in control.
Yet we are creative and connective creatures, alive with an incalculable capacity to surprise. Look through a playful lens at the ways we devote our time and find space for ourselves in an increasingly nonsensical world. When we are bouncing around the whirring, flashing, pinball machine of existence, is our wayward attention a way of coping with the chaos?
Through local and international experimental projects – some developed in conversation with scientists and researchers – you are invited to participate in your own way. The time here is yours, what do you want to do with it?
Visit Science Gallery Melbourne to experience the playful ways we devote our time in an increasingly nonsensical world. With a hundred tabs open and endless avenues to explore, how do we harness the cacophony of content and find meaning within it?
Exhibition dates: 26 July 2025 – 9 May 2026.
