A digital billboard that pays you a minimum wage for looking.
Supported through a City of Melbourne Test Sites grant.The average person sees around 6,000 ads a day—some of which I helped create. Advertising saturates public space, each billboard engineered
to capture attention for profit. My project flips this exchange, bringing transparency to the transaction.
Paid Attention explores the commodification of attention in public. Situated in the heart of Bourke Street Mall, a screen fitted with an eye-tracking camera pays viewers minimum wage for their gaze.
Utilising techniques from advertising, a series of ‘attention affirmations’ provide just enough stimulation to test a viewer’s attention. Part meditative mantra, part capitalist slogan—I designed these affirmations to an intentionally dull rhythm, prompting reflection on the value of looking.
Advertising reduces audiences to ‘eyeballs’, providing an important motif for attention and surveillance through the work.
If our lives are shaped by where we place attention, how much is it really worth?