Not Enough Hours In A Day

I wrote more today, focussing on Immediacy, unpacking it further and I came across this great idea from Lahman about looking through vs looking at.

The two ideas respectively align with immediacy and hypermediacy, but offer another way of explaining them, which is really useful when you're sick of manipulating the same words repeatedly.

I haven't finished Chapter One's draft, but I'm plodding along. I have however started Chapter Two, and between them both I'm over my word count.

I also got the meeting set up for ethics, and provided that goes through this time I'm on track for interviews at the end of this month. I've got two pretty sure bets and depending on what comes out that might be enough.

On a note far more related to the theme of this post, I did some extra work on the INXS movie today. For those who know anything about Australian music history, I had a cup of tea with Tim Farriss while we were killing time between shots - and we talked about world politics and the nature of contemporary film and theatre.

I bumped into another lad (Steve Lopez) who I'd done a shoot with a while back and we had a great talk about acting styles and in particular the merits of non-acting - something I'm pretty keen to pursue as a line of enquiry further down the track.  

After the shoot I ran over to see non-acting in action via 'Einstein On The Beach'. The shoot finished early which means I only missed the first hour of the show, but I caught the last three-and-a-half. 

Yeah, it's a long piece. It absolutely lines up with what I'm writing about (it's a hypermediate epic), and it is a beautiful nightmare to watch.

At times I was totally rapt in the smallest things. A light hitting the side of a clock looked exactly like a crescent moon, and I couldn't take my eyes off it.

Other times I was taken with the spectacle, like the penultimate 'scene' when lights met machinery and floating boxes glided past one another as the bomb dropped in the form of a huge semi-transparent screen.

Einstein played beautiful violin. A tiny Asian girl sang 'Bed' all alone. The sheet music was clearly visible - and enormous.

I thought a girl was a dummy - until she moved.

And so much more.

And it was also madness/sleep inducing, but speaking of sleep inducing I'll have to get to that later.

Not enough hours, remember?

A lot is going on

I'm very tired.

I woke up early and wrote.

I went to the dentist. My teeth are very clean.

I came home and wrote.

I wrote more.

I went to the PhD workshop.

I got a gig on the INXS movie.

I went to work.

I wrote more.

I pulled three pomodoros in the morning and one in the evening.

I finished the words for 'Remediation' and started work on 'Immediacy'.

I got my paper back from Shae.

I learned the difference between co-authored and individual publication.

I realised I have a whole host of publishable work.

I realised I have a whole host of work that is really hard to publish.

I practiced my British accents.

I ate, showered and I need some sleep.

There is a lot happening.

PhD Workshop Round 2

- In September, someone (Cleo?) will rock up to the meet to discuss further details

- Scholarships: check websites

- If your project is funded, often a scholarship will be attached

- fee waive

- If you look like getting a scholarship, look around. If you're a good candidate, likelihood is greater

- Applying is big: 1500 words, bibliography, etc. Start with what you know (i.e. extend what you're working on)

- Applications (at least for RMIT) are not yet open

- Everything counts (written work, creative work - plays, photographs) in the way of publication.

- Potential journals: Screen Education Australia, Metro, 

- H1 MUST for Scholarship - as well as publication history

- publications must be relevant to your area of study

- co-authoring vs individual publication

- Endeavour scholarships (Commonwealth based)

- JASON (scholarship database)

- Your Supervisor needs to be your advocate 

- Academic publication is easier to deal with, but all of it counts

- Application to Universities vs application to schools within Universities

 

Slippage

Today I met up with the fellas. We had words due, but I proposed an exercise more related to our general attack plans.

We each wrote out our plans and spent a while talking about them one at a time. The general comment that arose was 'slippage' - where a single word can be used in a variety of confusing contexts.

More appropriately, one word can mean several things, with each being radically different from each other. Take Ed's use of space and place. For he and Jason, the two terms mean the same thing, but for me, each term means the exact opposite of what the boys think. 

This lines up neatly with my issue from yesterday. I explained my idea of Remediation (past/historical) and Remediating (current/active). Jason thought the 'active' was a nice - useful - touch, and we each tried to insert this idea (slippage) into each of our plans just to see if they held up.

Results:

Essay Outline

Chapter One

Remediation - introducing the historical idea of remediation, which itself opens the door to immediacy and hypermediacy

Immediacy - transparent immediacy, the ideal of realism and the focus of each new development always searching to outdo the last 

Hypermediacy - non-realism, mechanics and the inevitable by-product of progess

Remediating - active, in-work remediation, where the 'twin logics' function simultaneously.

Chapter Two

The Fourth-Wall - introducing the idea of an interface in a physically co-present medium.

Immediate Theatre - the fourth-wall's alignment to realism and by association, immediacy, from it's inception until the early 20th Century

Hypermediate Theatre - breaking the fourth-wall and the introduction of theatre's general trend towards hypermediacy as a genre

Remediating Theatre - current theatrical trends, and how in all guises theatre presents more hypermediate trends than any other genre

Chapter Three

Case Studies - most likely Gob Squad and Punchdrunk, with the possibility of a more 'common' (normalised) format (Musicals or Contemporary Opera) to balance the equation.

The gist is to show that theatre is unique, but not because of theatre's general claim to immediacy. Rather, theatre is separate because of hypermediacy - and it has always been this way. By showing this, theatre stands apart from every other visual media addressed by Bolter and Grusin, which may been seen as an attack on them if addressed in terms of Remediating, but not in lieu of Remediation.

Viewed in this way, theatre can been remediated to create film/tv, especially in terms of the time period film/tv emerged, when the general theatrical consensus was that of realism, but theatre's current usage is extremely hypermediate, perhaps in opposition to film/tv but also perhaps as a general trend of the theatrical genre.

The thesis does not address WHY, only that it IS.

All in the quest to avoid Slippage.

 

The Argument

A great song by Fugazi, and tonight's query.

Preface: My Research Question.

"By using Bolter and Grusin's 'Remediation' on the fourth-wall of theatre, is immediacy no longer the 'ideal', and has hypermediacy become the dominant desire in theatre?"

Current: Today

Expanding on my prior essay offers mixed results. I find that the essay works as a stand alone piece. Even though it deals with most of the elements of my thesis, it takes an alternate direction. THIS IS ACADEMIA, where the same concepts can be applied in a variety of ways to achieve vastly different results.

Let's pull it apart via my question. Firstly, Remediation is two-fold. By this I mean that it can be applied conceptually (for me) both historically and within a singular work. I've separated these ideas as Remediation (the historical) and Remediating (in-work - note the active usage of the term). 

B&G (Bolter and Grusin) also identify in this manner - I just need a convenient shorthand for ease of writing/thinking. As far as I can tell, Remediation is always in pursuit of immediacy, whereas Remediating is not.

This in itself poses a huge dilemma. Theatre as an art form is consistently Remediating, but in terms of history there is a distinct period (mid C17-approx. 1900) where the general trend of theatre was toward the immediate.

Just over the last century, theatre has done as much as possible to dispel this line of thought, but the problem still remains:

Is hypermediacy a by-product of theatre, or a sought-after end-point?

Dear chosen deity, make it stop...

Again with the pieces

I cut up the essay so far into little parts and ended up with a lot less than I thought I had, especially when removing the case studies from the equation.

I'm also questioning where I need to put theatre into the mix. Is it safe to assume (NO) that people will get it, or must I spend valuable words defining my notion of theatre in terms of this essay?

Another thought that comes to mind is the exact nature of the fourth-wall, and how much I should write about the phenomenon. I feel like unpacking it over history then following that up with how it works today is kind of bogus, whereas if I marry the two together it has much more flow and actually leads into the place that the writing needs to end up - the case studies.

From there, the case studies themselves pose an issue. I don't think I can do just one, but three is way too many if I'm going deep, so two seems like the best option. However, because I'm really only talking about one facet of theatre, it might be best to do a cross-section of several practical uses of the alternate fourth-wall.

So it comes down to getting a good set up. I think the first chapter is shaping up okay, and the second one is going to cause the issues, but the faster I write the faster I'll find out.

It has to flow. That is the key to everything. I want to write it so the argument almost isn't there, as if you read this thing and its as if the conclusion was already in you - you just didn't know it yet. 

I can't decide whether I want images, but I think since I'm talking visual medium it is better to go down that path. With two of the guys I'm interviewing I need to see if photos exist from our work together - that way I can agree to images of myself being used and credit the gents while we're at it.

Again with the pieces and the details.

The future

I fired off a couple of queries about journals today, along with a potential audition.

It sounds like it's not part of my research, but considering I need to have PhD applications in before my thesis is done, and that requires publication, it sure feels like it.

Plus, in my case, part of my (well, loads of my) research and practice involves performing, and it's hard to just sit on front of a laptop and create only words. 

My practice is in my body and far beyond film, which while much easier on time and sanity is nowhere near the same as getting stuck into a play.

So today I did a lot of work that relates to the future - and gives me more time to spend on the present task at hand over the next three days.