Attention is the directedness of consciousness, but also needs to be distinguished from intention, and intentionality. Attention is directed at an object, intention may be directed at what is not yet an object and intentionality names this capability which is both passive and active, receptive to the (possible) object and also creating it, forming it out of a presence already in place. The object of attention is positive, it possesses the ability to draw attention to itself, it is a salient of interest. But can there be empty attention? Attention must let go of one object and move to another and so must retain both a peripheral awareness, an attention to what is not attended to, and the ability to detach itself. There is no phase of consciousness which is not reversible, where it is absorbed it can also be precipitated - sometimes this seems natural since there is felt effort in any conscious formation, energy is consumed, becomes exhausted, but at other times it is surprising, as when consciousness is pathologically overmastered by its object and can't detach via its own process, something like addiction. In detaching itself attention moves into a moment of emptiness, becomes free-floating or latent, but only for the briefest time, since it ceases to exist when it has no object. Perhaps it is like those brief intervals in a film when the camera pans from one scene to the next and there is a jerky blur which would destroy the illusion that we are looking into a world if we weren't sure that will be a destination, a new object, a new satisfaction in relation to the one renounced. Objects of attention are those that draw it in, satisfy and absorb it. In some passages in nouveaux romans an empty cinematic gaze travels over a neutral scene until it becomes hooked by a sexual image, a lure of desire. We are looking for what we want. Think of a bee in a flowering garden, attracted into flowers to drink their nectar; at some point the bee has filled its reservoir, it pulls out of the flower and turns towards the hive, attention switches to complementary activities, regurgitation, communication. Attention as labour, as transformation.