Summary of Jenny Odell's How to Do Nothing

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 I gave a talk at EYEO, an art and technology conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2017. I ground the talk in a specific place: the Morcom Amphitheatre of Roses in Oakland, California. I did that because it was in the Rose Garden that I began brainstorming my talk.

#2 I work as a visual artist, and my favorite public art piece is by a documentary filmmaker. It was done in 1973, and materially consisted of a map with a list of locations in San Francisco. Following Steinbeck’s formula, the windows at each location were the bottle, and whatever happened behind them were the stories that crawled in.

#3 A more recent example of this is Scott Polach’s Applause Encouraged, which takes place at Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego. In this case, the artist creates a space that is open to the public against the pressures of habit, familiarity, and distraction.

#4 Bird-watching is the opposite of looking something up online. You can’t really look for birds, but you can listen for them and identify them when they sing. This practice requires you to do nothing but listen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Feb 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669348894

IRB Media

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Book preview

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