Audience 2

On 17th we broadened the open enquiry into understandings of attention by engaging the public on the streets of Berlin. Just south of Tempelhof is Silbersteinstraße, a long cut through between the Berlin’s ring-road (the 100) and the hubbub of Hermannstraße. Silbersteinstraße’s assorted old and new apartments buildings are dotted with eclectic businesses, shops and cafes and the area is yet to be noticeably affected by Berlin’s encroaching gentrification. While the Neukölln district of Berlin is known for its Turkish immigration there are also those of many other origins. Silbersteinstraße 142 is the African Shop, it’s packed with arts and crafts and as we enter the cool of this Aladdin’s cave a stocky, middle aged man emerges from the back whose demeanour tells us he is the owner - his assured body language welcoming of potential custom in this quiet stretch of the street. We establish that he can spare a few minutes for our inquiry and, as with the previous interviewees we ask about attention. What are you paying attention to now? How are you experiencing your attention ? It’s with you, he replies, I want you to be interested in my shop. There’s a slight pause, an initial short circuiting in which we realign our different intentions. But, where is your attention situated? He points to his head – it’s here, it’s all here. He makes a direct equivalence between intelligence and attention and in so doing tells an anecdote about sheep being forced to jump over a stick and when the stick is removed those that follow continue to jump. We ask him to raise his arms to see if it alters attention? No, it doesn’t change, I’m only doing it because you tell me to. He then turns the table on us. Where are you from? Italy; the UK, London. We learn that he is a Berliner, his wife from West Africa and that he lived in London in the 1970s. Where did you live in London? In Hornsey, Woodland Gardens he says. As we discover shared experiences of the area and life in London he enjoys the memories and becomes more relaxed and animated. A barrier between us has dropped and before we leave we reflect that his attention has shifted and is more in his body. Across the street we encounter Ahmet on the pavement who responds openly to our approach, however, as we ask him about attention he remains fixated on his phone. His response to the question: Where do you place your attention? is to repeat the words ‘Yes, yes, autos, gold, rich man, rich city, Dubai, perfume…’. He shows us photos on his phone of his Ferrari Taxi. We try a different tack with the questioning in the hope of moving towards how he experiences attention. Try as we might, there remains a comedic disjunction between our enquiry into the nature of attention and Ahmet’s preoccupation with material wealth. He insistently repeats his references to money, wanting us to share in his enthusiasm. The more we ask him to consider the nature of attention the more photographs and videos he produces signifying monetary wealth. Is this really his answer? From inside the business premises another joins us in the intense heat of the street, and then another, all attempting to help by translating into Arabic or German. As confusion ensues the absurdity of the scene builds - there are now five of us attempting to clarify the word attention in Arabic, English, German and Italian, all talking over, attempting to assist. A street scene develops. There is congenial curiosity, amusement, misunderstanding and these men from the shop are mobile, simultaneously going about their everyday business. The discombobulation of this encounter is disorientating, there is a sense that we could be in another part of the world– perhaps North Africa, or is it Malaysia, where are we? ‘I like any people’ says Ahmet. He shows a photograph of a falcon, ‘How much you think? Fifty three million dollars’. In the melee of coming and going and the heat, all revolving around the question of attention in several languages, the development of a single idea is lost yet serious concerns are present. How do you pay attention? With my brain, to Allah, Ahmet looks up and smiles. Meanwhile the boss tells us he is paying attention to going to the mosque. Ahmet says ‘People with a good heart I like, yes, I like any people.’ There’s a patient forcefulness with which all attempt to help, a concern to get this thing done and the boss decides that attention is the same as achtung. All the while there is another man in the group, wearing a taqiyah, prayer hat, whose presence quietly mediates in the confusion. Vocally he’s least apparent yet most present in his understanding of what is happening in the chaotic group exchange. He mediates between us through kind smiles, listening, and as he helps in trying to unravel the misunderstandings he calms things. It’s time for everyone to move on and as a parting gesture Ahmet sprays our arms with perfume. In this group exchange our attention is consumed in trying to embrace the totality of what is happening in our cosmopolitan exchange, on this street, with traffic noise, in the intense heat of the day, our conversing an accompaniment to the coming and goings of the business and passers-by. Attention is contextualised by concerns. This group encounter has also comedically pointed out the problems of language and semantics. The question of attention receives very different responses as these encounters show. This assemblage is a meta representation for our enquiry into the nature of attention: attention goes where it will, in unexpected places, is situated, and the substance of what occurs in each of the exchanges in our search for the nature of attention takes us to unpredictable and unknown places.