Just for some background, I've been using each of my classes to investigate a piece of my research. Now I'm putting these bits together to create a single entity.
Here's what I've got so far - a letter to my supervisory team:
"Hi guys,
Okay, if I remember correctly, we were
supposed to send through 'updates' on how our research questions and
the like were travelling. Here goes:
I like catchy titles, so my current
revision is "Hold Please: The Search for Immediacy in Digital
Performance".
I suppose I'll have to define two
halves, then unite them as a total argument.
The first idea is to generate a
workable definition of the concept of immediacy. Some starting points
for myself are:
- Susan Davis, "Liveness,
mediation and immediacy" in Research in Drama Education: The
Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 17.4: 501-516.
- David Saltz, "Live Media:
Interactive Technology and Theatre", Theatre Topics, 11.2
(2001): 107-130.
- Philip Auslander, Liveness :
Performance in a Mediatized Culture, Taylor and Francis, 2008.
Between these readings, I guess I can
kind of weave a net of the immediate. The Davis article is
particularly useful for my own purposes, offering quite a good
discussion on differing definitions of 'immediacy'.
I also read a fair chunk of the stuff
you (Larissa) gave me. I really liked the "Waiting for
Immediacy" - I thought it was thought provoking without being
draining, and I'm always partial to reading something that makes me
actually get up and use my body. Kind of changed my research angle
from promoting immediacy in digital performance to the opposite –
which is much more accurate and interesting.
I read the Meyer article you (John)
sent me too (Bridget Meyer, “Mediation and Immediacy: Sensational
Forms, Semiotic Ideaologies and the Question of the Medium”, Social
Anthropology Special Issue: What is a Medium, 19.1 (2011): 90-97).
You're right – even though it wasn't quite in my usual bracket, the
concepts were up my alley. I was really taken by the last two
paragraphs, with media as bringer of immediate connection to the
almighty, and also the “which position to take regarding the
'invisibility' of the media object”. This is surprisingly integral
to my argument, as my whole position relies on both the 'visibility'
of the object and taking an external stance!
Anyway, the next half is digital
performance, and going on the idea of no more than 2-3 case studies,
I thought I might look at this quite bluntly, starting with a quick
overview of the 'opposite' of digital performance (traditional 'live'
theatre) as a basis for immediacy in performance, then branch
outwards.
- Peggy Phelan (Unmarked: The Politics
of Performance, NewYork, Routledge, 1993) kind of defines performance
as immediate due wholly to it's liveness, with anything else not
quite hitting the mark (that's a huge oversimplification, but it'll
do for now), which seems to be a pretty easy way of opening
traditional theatre as a starting point.
- After that, I'll probably roll with
Blast Theory, and use them as a mid-point, due to their combined use
of the physical and digital. I could pretty much pick anything
they've done in the last ten years, but 'Can You See Me Now', 'I Like
Frank' or 'I'd Hide You' seem good options in that they combine the
liveness/co-presence of theatre with digital media in a true mixed
media performance context and, in doing so, highlight the difference
in immediacy between the two options. Perhaps I'll do a close study
of one work, but I'm thinking it might be better if I look at the
thread consistently present in their work. I'll likely be citing
yourself (Larissa) and also John Farman (Mobile Interface Theory:
Embodied Space and Locative Media, Routledge, 2012.) as his text is
way to good not to include.
- Finally, I'd move on to Avatar Body
Collision and their use of Upstage to create what their founder Helen
Varley Jamieson has coined 'cyberformance' - essentially, wholly
digital performance, with no visible physical presence (she wrote her
Masters Thesis on her ABC work, which I'll dig up a reference for
shortly). While it is certainly the most readily accessible form of
'live' performance, it is without doubt the least immediate.
I guess that's the general plan, to
prove (in thesis format) the idea that the closer to totally digital
performance becomes, the less immediate it is. The less co-present,
the less immediate – simple as that.
I'm delegating my honours thesis to
this endeavour in the hope that it may become the first chapter in my
doctoral research, which will probably be a series of works
investigating how I might go about reversing this, or adding to the
space in between by arguing that interactive theatre is the same as
Big Gaming (that'll turn a few heads).
While it might sound negative to try
and disprove the immediate in the digital, really what I'm doing is
promoting the vibrancy and life that is inherent in live-theatre, and
proving that while cyberformance is amazing in what it does, there
is still, and always will be a place for traditional modes of
performance – and this place might even be made all the more
special due to its opposition.
It's still a little shaky, but you get
the idea. Is this kind of what you were after"
And the progress begins.
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