Communicate/Perform/Talk It Out

I'm a big fan of Scott Adams' blog (he's the creator of the 'Dilbert' cartoons) as he always has something well-reasoned, interesting, and generally funny to say. (I don't always 100% agree with him, but I suspect he'd be happy to hear that.) A recent post discusses 'Acting' - not in a theatre, but in the political arena. It's a little scary, to look at the idea that a key element of political acceptance is not just the way a person presents themselves (Regan, JFK), but also that lying is the norm and it's OK because everyone knows it's a lie.

Scary too if you consider that this new perception could be seen as a result of the Internet - I could be idealizing the past, here, but I think once-upon-a-time the public had to investigate and really trust their elected officials (who in turn felt obligated to uphold that trust) because it took time and considerable effort to check up on their results. Now, it doesn't much matter if we trust those in office (or if we accept from the outset that they will lie to us) because we can almost instantaneously have reported back to us the things they say and do, and if the results are contrary or self-serving we just say "Well, I knew he was going to do that anyway." (Why is Clinton still respected and listened to, again?)

So then we have Facebook and social networking... a few years ago I would have said it was understood that on Internet dating sites the majority of the participants would be 'performing', or 'putting their best selves forward by lying'. Now, considering the continued popularity and usage of such sites, I have to question if that's really the case. How can they successfully connect people if everyone lies? The week's reading seems naive at this point (ironically, only two years after writing - can we get something equivalent to 'dog years' for the Internet?) and I'd be interested in a follow-up and re-write. I see the point, that it's performative in that people will generally try to present themselves in a certain way. I, for example, tend not to update my status with anything depressing or gloomy, even if that's how I 'am'. I will always try to find something funny or clever to say (uplifting as a last resort) because that is how I want to be perceived, which is performative. On the other hand, I would also say that a certain percentage of the online users I'm connected to don't take much thought as to how they're perceived - they use the Internet as a general receptacle for whatever they happen to doing, thinking, or feeling at whatever moment they happen to be doing, thinking, or feeling it. (I'm not involved with Twitter, but from what I understand this could define 95% if everything posted there.) As such I wouldn't call their action performative, any more than a conversation with a group of friends out on the quad is performative. (Which it could be, of course, but usually only among theatre kids.)

There were lots of things I disagreed with in the article, several points I felt were vague and unsupported, and some things that I just guessed could be wrong because they have changed since the article was written. I'm looking forward to the class discussion - and would you look at that, the vehicle for the death of face-to-face interaction giving us even more to talk about!

Inside Out

We keep referring to "authenticity" and the "authentic experience" as if it's a given, particularly in relation to art. What exactly is this authentic experience? Ironically, it seems to me, the article in the link refers to authenticity as the "seeming" of reality. Something is perceived to be real. That's fine - in many ways it's the entire premise upon which theatre performance is based (except when it's deliberately not, of course - but even then it still acknowledges the standing belief of the perception of realness in performance, even as it contradicts it).

Still, why must authenticity (in art, not antiques or jewelry or such) be determined by anything outside of the individual audience? Isn't any experience an "authentic" experience? (How can it be anything else?) Must the experience be entirely judged by the intent of the artist? What if the artist has not made their intent clear? How is authenticity to be determined then?

"Mechanical representation" of a piece of art (Internet, postcard, book, etc...) may make the work more accessible, less exclusive, but it will also make the experience/perception/reception of the art different than it would be in person. Which is to say, why is that experience less authentic? The engagement is with a representation of the art, and the experience should be considered authentic to that type of engagement.


Consider: if a piece of art is designed to be encountered "mechanically", would a "live" presentation then become the mechanical representation?

Inspired By...

So for my final project my course leader has decided I must produce an "artifact" (apparently, the shows I'm working on, with their constituent research packets, study guides, program notes, etc... as well as the dissertation-length paper I was planning to write laying out the results of the "compare and contrast" study I've been prepping all year, don't count) and Wednesday night it occurred to me: build a website! I talked it over with the course leader on Thursday and he's thrilled - Friday in Web Presence I realized this module would be a big help in designing and populating an effective Dramaturgy website.

I haven't decided if this class inspired the madness, or is just enabling it. Or both.

Now if it would just help me come up with the perfect domain name...

First Day of Class

Welcome to Web Presence! In breaking news, Space is the Final Frontier!

Wait.

I think maybe we knew that already, or at least had heard that before. That's OK, though, there are plenty of other new things to think about from today's session!

Realized: Space, I think, is a matter of time, distance, measurement, relativity... I kept coming back to the idea that space is perspective. When we see a new way of relating to someone (or where, or thing) we experience a perspective shift. Our space changes.

In discussion we 'humanized' Einstein's Theory of Relativity by applying it to the idea of national culture: does location/proximity make a person more or less susceptible to the culture of that location? Does the person's presence in any way affect that culture? Etc... I started to find/become aware that these issues (protection of national culture; integration, assimilation, 'loss' of culture) are not in any way new, that they have surfaced repeatedly throughout history. What has changed is our perception of and response to these issues when they arise again; or rather, when we become aware that these issues are present and relevant in our own time and history. We are so resistant to change - and more, we are extraordinarily resistant to the concept that our perceptions should/ought to/can change. Then we talk about it, think about it, realize that perception change is a good/progressive/irrefutable thing, and go on to resist something else.

An acceptance of change in perception (both the idea of change in general and specific personal shifts) can lead to a removal or adjustment of value judgements. 'Addict' is a word referring to the state of being addicted - we are conditioned to assign this word negative connotations. However, that word may be used not to determine a 'problem', or a condition that needs/ought to be changed, but a simple statement of fact to be judged by no more than its definition. People generally scoff when I say I'm 'addicted' to chocolate - but they deny the idea that that particular affinity is in any way bad, not that it exists. They reject their own perception that an addiction of any kind is negative, since in this case it is applied to chocolate. They scoff at their own judgement, and then resume their regularly scheduled perception of "addiction" by dropping the topic altogether. A more progressive, non-value-based response might be to say instead, "And that's a bad thing...?" thereby validating the definition of the word but leaving the judgement up to the statement's author (me). 

Space. Perception. Relativity between two bodies. Perceiving the relative distance between those two bodies. Filling the space.

Yay, theatre!