This is the transcript of a keynote talk I gave at EYEO 2017 in Minneapolis. An adapted version appears in my book, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy.

I’d like to start off by saying that this talk is grounded in a particular location, and that is the Morcom Amphitheatre of Roses in Oakland, California, otherwise known simply as “the rose garden.”

In the most basic sense, that’s because I largely wrote this talk in the rose garden. But it’s also because as I wrote it, I realized that the garden encompassed everything that I’m going to talk to you about, which is the practice of doing nothing, but also the architecture of nothing, the importance of public space, and an ethics of care and maintenance. And: birds.

What was I doing in the rose garden in the first place? I live five minutes away, and ever since I’ve lived in Oakland the garden has been my default place to go to get away from my computer, where I make much of my art and also do most of my work related to teaching. But after the 2016 election, I started going to the rose garden almost every day. This wasn’t exactly a conscious decision; I needed to go — like a deer going to a salt lick or a goat going to the top of a hill. It was innate.[…]

Source: how to do nothing