Towards a New Form of Urban Art...

"Attention," a voice began to call, and it was as though an oboe had suddenly become articulate. "Attention," it repeated in the same high, nasal monotone. "Attention." Lying there like a corpse in the dead leaves, his hair matted, his face grotesquely smudged and bruised, his clothes in rags and muddy, Will Farnaby awoke with a start. Molly had called him. Time to get up. Time to get dressed. Mustn't be late at the office. "Thank you, darling," he said and sat up. A sharp pain stabbed at his right knee and there were other kinds of pain in his back, his arms, his forehead. "Attention," the voice insisted without the slightest change of tone. Leaning on one elbow, Will looked about him and saw with bewilderment, not the gray wallpaper and yellow curtains of his London bedroom, but a glade among trees and the long shadows and slanting lights of early morning in a forest. "Attention"? Why did she say, "Attention"? "Attention. Attention," the voice insisted—how strangely, how senselessly!

- Aldous Huxley, "Island"

"Attention", a voice began to call, and it was as though an oboe had suddenly become articulate. "Attention", it repeated in the same high, nasal monotone. "Attention" (...)

"Is that your bird?" Will asked.

She shook her head.

Mynahs are like the electric light", she said. "They don't belong to anybody."

Why does he say those things?

"Because somebody taught him", she answered patiently...

But why did they teach him those things? Why 'Attention'? Why 'Here and now?'

"Well ..." She searched for the right words in which to explain the self-evident to this strange imbecile. "That's what you always forget, isn't it? I mean, you forget to pay attention to what's happening. And that's the same as not being here and now."

"And the mynahs fly about reminding you—is that it?"

She nodded. That, of course, was it. There was a silence.

Aldous Huxley, "Island"