Training the homo cellularis: attention and the mobile phone

Drawing on literature from philosophy of technology, mobile media studies, performer training as well as practice-based research, this article examines the use of mobile phones in performer training, through the notion of pharmakon and in relation to questions of attention. It reviews the work of other performer training practitioners who use mobile phones and examines underlying assumptions with regard to the nature of attention and the use of space. Although the aim of this article is neither to advocate nor apologise for mobile phone use, it argues that the mobile phone may invite a rethinking of the way attention is exercised and understood within performer training. By discussing an exercise developed by the author within a university-based theatre training context, this article argues that an ‘attention–distraction’ dichotomy in terms of the trainee’s attending capacity is no longer an adequate explanatory framework. It therefore suggests that attention should be approached as a multi-modal and synthesising process.