We are proud to announce that Grattan Street Press will be publishing Uncontained, the new monograph from author and University of Melbourne professor Robert Hassan.
In 2016, Robert stepped out of the social media frenzy that has become a daily prison and set out to find himself. He embarked on a personal journey through his own memory and across the sea. He shares that journey with us in Uncontained: Digital Disconnection and the Experience of Time.
Take your eyes from the screen and look around you, in the train, in the supermarket, in traffic, in the street and in the classroom. And think of all those uncountable others in rooms in homes and offices who just sit there, connected but alone.
Robert believes that we are ‘trapped in a digital prison of constant distraction’, and that the time we spend on screens is draining more from us than hours in the day. With the increasing amount of attention that digital devices demand diminishing our capacity for reflection, there is less time to stop and think about our lives, our selves.
So what happens when we remove technology altogether?
In order to break free from the ‘digital prison’, Hassan booked passage on a containership and spent five weeks travelling from Melbourne to Singapore—disconnected and essentially alone. In this space of isolation and reflection, he was able to reconnect with lost memories and interrogate the temporality of time.
Uncontained is a personal exploration of this journey and a must-read for anyone who feels the encroachment of the digital on their inner world. Available in bookstores and online in late July.
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