Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age

In 1994, Sven Birkerts published The Gutenberg Elegies, his celebrated rallying cry to resist the oncoming digital advances, especially those that might affect the way we read literature and experience art—the very cultural activities that make us human.

After two decades of rampant change, Birkerts has allowed a degree of everyday digital technology into his life. He refuses to use a...