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George Burdon

@georgeburdon.bsky.social

Cultural geographer at UNSW Canberra. Working on sound, affect, culture, attention.

5 Posts146 Follower 287 Folgt

George Burdon @georgeburdon.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Just published: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Had fun thinking/writing with Adam Hulbert about his series of overnight soundscape compositions for ABC Radio

Somnambience: composing restful spaces for overstimulating times

This paper offers a conceptual and methodological overview of Sleep Through, a series of soundscape compositions for the Australian Broadcasting Association that were created for the purposes of he...

tandfonline.com

Emily Herring @emilyherring.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Read my biography of Henri Bergson and: - wow your family and friends with your insights into pure durée - learn about the time Marcel Proust was best man at a wedding -access the immediate data of your consciousness - find out why a philosopher caused the first ever traffic jam on Broadway

Herald of a Restless World How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People by Emily Herring

The Quietus @thequietus.com · 9mo ago

"Radigue pursued an exciting musical life, moving from electroacoustic feedback to electronic music (with the help of her inseparable ARP 2500) and finally reinventing herself through fruitful collaborations with numerous instrumentalists.” R.I.P. Éliane Radigue buff.ly/ShlQoU5

Éliane Radigue, black and white photograph.

George Burdon @georgeburdon.bsky.social · 10mo ago

The paper I published in @areajournal.bsky.social last year has very kindly been 'highly commended' by @culturalgeogaus.bsky.social as part of their annual paper prize for early career researchers. Do consider following the study group if you are a cultural geographer in Australia!

Cultural Geography Australia@culturalgeogaus.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Congratulations to @georgeburdon.bsky.social for his wonderful paper 'Displaced attention: Bergson, attentive habits and Tony Conrad’s drone music' which has been highly commended as part of the Cultural Geography Study Groups annual paper prize award! rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

joe gerlach @joegerlach.bsky.social · last yr.

Spinoza's Geographical Ethics - out now, open access in e-book form: edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-spinoza... @edinburghup.bsky.social

Spinoza's Geographical Ethics

edinburghuniversitypress.com

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · last yr.

Worth reading alongside Claire Wilmot’s new piece, ‘Fascistic Dream Machines’, on the far right’s use of AI video: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

Area @areajournal.bsky.social · last yr.

#OpenAccess in Area: 'Displaced attention: Bergson, attentive habits and Tony Conrad's drone music' by @georgeburdon.bsky.social This paper explores the intimate links between attention and the different material environments of everyday life. doi.org/10.1111/area... #geosky

Screenshot of a paper abstract in Area by George Burdon (2025) entitled 'Displaced attention: Bergson, attentive habits and Tony Conrad's drone music' with a black banner at the top.

Attention has emerged as an important issue in the social sciences and humanities in recent years. Much influential work characterises our era as one in which our attention is increasingly placed under stress, seeking to unpack the consequences of such a state of affairs for our capacities to think. This paper turns to the work of Henri Bergson to offer a distinctly geographic perspective on such debates by emphasising the intimate links between attention and the material environments of everyday life. Thinking through Bergson, the paper suggests that some environments enrol a greater degree of our attention in routine actions, leaving us more in thrall to the repetitive sensory and cognitive solicitations of each present moment, while others are more amenable to a displacement of attention away from such demands, prising open time and space for creative thought and action. As a way of exploring the latter, the paper explores the potential of music—specifically, the drone music of Tony Conrad—to create environments of displaced attentiveness. Through the use of single tones sustained over long durations, often at high volumes, Conrad's performances aimed to create a space in which an audience's everyday habits of attention were suspended. Approaching Conrad's music through Bergson suggests that what emerges in the displacement of attention through drone music is a feeling for the powers of time that the teeming activity of each present moment requires we habitually ignore.

George Burdon @georgeburdon.bsky.social · last yr.

Just published: Thinking about the relations between attention and environment by way of Henri Bergson and drone music. Open access in @areajournal.bsky.social doi.org/10.1111/area...

Area | RGS Geography Journal | Wiley Online Library

This paper turns to the work of Henri Bergson to offer a distinctly geographic perspective on debates around attention by emphasising the intimate links between attention and the material environment...

doi.org

George Burdon @georgeburdon.bsky.social · 2y ago

New paper from me - a Geography Compass piece on sound art geographies: compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Sound Art Geographies: Listening at the Limits of Audibility

This paper explores the generative yet underexamined relation between human geography and sound art. Sound art has long been concerned with issues of spatiality, place and environment and yet interes....

compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

George Burdon @georgeburdon.bsky.social · 2y ago

A few days left to contribute to our proposed session on the geographies of attention at this year's RGS-IBG conference in Birmingham. Cfp and details of where to send an abstract below. Deadline Friday! @rgsibg.bsky.social