Giving Birth

I got my work back from Larissa.

There were very few alterations (barring bibliography).

Normally, there is loads to do. Today, not so much.

She said that once I've done this last little bit it should be ready to go. She actually said that.

And then the terror set it.

This is the mental equivalent of giving birth. A year ago it was nothing more than a glimmer in Daddy's eye. Nine months ago, my mind got knocked up. There have been pregnancy complications, the possibility of a late delivery and now the Doctor says it might come a day early.

And for the first time in the whole gestation period, I'm scared. Something is coming out me that's big, and life changing. And just like a newborn, I have no idea whether it'll turn out happy and healthy, or if it'll be a difficult delivery that results in retardation, academic retardation.

I'll have the kid regardless. Too late for a coat-hanger or a "trip" down the stairs. But my life will be different in a few days and I'm scared.

But a bun can't live in the oven too long or it spoils - and it hurts the mother too.

I think what is terrifying me is that this is the biggest thing I'll do that has a mark attached, and that mark decides the next step. I want to do a PhD, but I want a scholarship and I'm chasing marks.

I'm waiting to hear back about my publication, but that isn't until November.

I'll be waiting for this too, once it's out. Like it'll be in neonatal care for eight weeks or something.

What'll I be like if I ever become a Father? Although if I get four days of stress every nine months or so, I can't be doing too badly.

Counting

This might well be the last post before The Biggun (as it is labeled on my laptop) is due.

I sent the lot in (words, not bibliography or photos) on Friday.

I couldn't look at it anymore. 15500 is a big number, and it isn't even close to what I need.

I was scared I wouldn't have enough. Now I can't stop.

I looked over what I have and I found a couple of earlier places to wrap up. Not too much earlier mind you, but at a place where I can say "Look, I did something small but cool, and this is the direction it might lead".

Now this doesn't mean I didn't work today. I put my bibliography together (157 references), made sure all the in-text stuff fit and started collecting photos. The pictures won't be too hard to grab (about 1 for every 1000 words - a picture tells a 1000 doesn't it? So I'll have 30000 come Monday) I don't really know how to reference them so that's my problem for now.

When I get my writing back, I can send that stuff to the Boss and fix the problems in the written work. Mash the two together, format, one final look-over and Friday hits.

Then it is all over.

I'm scared, because I'm putting something real out into the world. Thankfully I can shoot it via email since my markers are away, but I will make a concrete copy at some point. I might wait until they send it back so I can edit it further before forking out the money to make it "real", but it will be my first little book.

My first. I can tell this is going to be like a show. Once it is all over there is this massive relief that you did it, nobody died and for the most part people had a good time. Two weeks later you get reminiscent and two weeks after that you get depressed, because it can't be replicated and there is nothing else to do.

Then the next show comes along and it starts again. You take what you did from the last one, add to it and make this one better.

I'm a pretty good theatre practitioner. I'm rusty as all hell (and I'll be doing a short film in November so at least I won't feel totally ceased up) but I'm good. I hope to whatever larger-than-man force you believe in that this will hold for writing.

For now I'm off, but I'm not pulling hair or procrastinating. Just counting words, and counting on a good mark to get to the next place.

Now to count sheep...

Quiet Carriage

Here's a post I wrote (but never published due to lack of Internet connection) on October 4th, around 10pm:

PART I

I just got on the train at Strathfield (NSW) on the way to Gosford and took a nice comfy seat in the front carriage.

Mum called to see when I'd land and we started talking. Then a bunch of people began to give me really filthy looks until one of the nicer seeming folk got up and told me I was in a "quiet carriage" - a place where no conversation - present or remote - was allowed.

After a whispered apology for my ignorance I stepped out and finished my conversation.

PART II (back about 10 hours)

I was on a really long train from Melbourne to Sydney thinking it'd be a good working environment. Lack of internet and no need to really write any non-internet necessary new work made me edit, and we all know I hate editing.

Then these two guys started talking, loudly, right behind me for the rest of my journey.

Where was the F*&%^NG quiet carriage then??!!!?!

Time

Normally I get it wrong in the other direction. I looked at the minutes in the SSCC meeting this morning and saw 16/10/2013.

Nine days is fine. Later that day I met with my Supervisor.

Strangely, I have so much to do and not enough time, but because I had my days the wrong way around I may have inadvertently gone a touch over. One in the bag.

I'm halfway through my third chapter (revise and edit), while The Boss has pulled stuff from the first two into an intro. We talked about due dates (Honours, PhD and just life) before I gave a promise that I'd have a full draft - edited and gap-free - on Friday!

Terrifying, but a very good kick. Larissa also expected that I'd submit digitally (a massive bonus, but considering my "school" probably not that unexpected) which does give me a few extra days.

So I'm in a place where I have much to do and just possibly, exactly the right amount of time.

The knowledge of the time-frame is not just a pressure cooker, but also a release. Once the Honours thing is in, I have enough time to do the rest, which also means I will have everything done before I turn 30!!!!

No degrees at 25. Two at 30. Hopefully, Three before 35.

All it takes is time.

Brushstrokes

I can't drum and I can't paint.

I have great rhythm and timing. I'm artistic and creative. I'm extremely dextrous - physically, mentally and verbally.

But that isn't the point. I'm writing a thesis.

I have two editors. Larissa is an artist and she paints broadly. Neal is a designer and he uses a fine brush.

Larissa gets my material first. She looks at the lot and tells me where I'm missing sections. Neal gets it once Larissa has had a crack and he tells me where I'm missing details.

Today I finished the first two chapters, and by finished I mean they both had a look and I've adjusted it accordingly.

I started work on the final chapter and I found this great through-line - black boxes - which I would never have seen without the two of them.

Larissa feeds me ideas and lets me go wild. Neal sees the result and tells me where to reign it in.

I'm working (paid working) this weekend so not much writing to be done from here, but I'm seeing Neal Monday and Larissa Tuesday which is the reverse of the usual - just as for this post I did my research journal before the blog.

ANYWAY, I'm working under pressure (October 25 is D-day) without the pressure (I actually have until November 22 if I want it). I'm using the editors and the perceived pressure to get it done. If its ready to go on D-day, then I'm out. If it needs more time it can only improve - and I'm happy to take it either way.

The gist is that too many cooks blah blah, but the right amount of cooks working in unison work.

A drum circle is a beautiful thing.

Collaborative art is the same.

I've a great gift in mind for Larissa. Now I might have to get one for Neal.

For someone who is useless with brushes, I'm doing my best not to brush it aside.

Or maybe I'm just stroking a few egos...

That was some truly awful punning...

Back in Black

I'm sort of back. In pretty heavy lock-down, but back enough to drop in here for a little.

Currently working on my two sections. One is just editing, the other almost there.

I was kind of shitting myself when my "holiday" destroyed my writing. Long story short my tech failed so I'm a touch behind - but not too far.

I sent of my latest incarnation of Chapter 3. It isn't finished, but it isn't far off. So while that's gone I'm poring over the rest with the editing comb, and I'm about a third of the way through.

Now I'm not being ruthless, but I'm not being precious either. Larissa has gone over it a couple of times and seems pretty okay for the most part, but Neal had a lot of underlines and question marks, so I'm mostly going over it with his eyes and adjusting accordingly.

In doing all of this I realise where I write best. I basically invent my own framework and just talk through stuff. There are a few really nice paragraphs in there where it is quite clear that its me talking and not just regurgitating other folk's ideas.

So as I go over the editing, I'm trying to find other places where I can throw this in. I revamped an earlier paragraph in the first section and I'm trying to run with that. It's basically a two part idea (what and how) where one thing links to objects and the other to content. It sort of hits steam as interfaces become objects, which is basically by applying remediation to the equation.

I keep editing with the hope of bringing down my word count, but it's so far out of hand I've kind of given up on that aim. When all is said and done I'll be staring down the barrel of a Monash Honours thesis (maybe 18K if I include references) but all in all, even with so much left to do I'm actually not that far off and I'm out of the red.

Which means I'm back in the black.

Dirty Thirty

I'm off to my two oldest friend's combined 30th.

Catching the train so I can do some work.

Probably already told you all that.

Anyhow, I wrote the Convergence chunk today which took me somewhere else. It took me to a place where theatre (and by this I mean co-location in a non-digital setting) reigns supreme.

Again, not that it's better than anything else, but that is distinct. A recording doesn't cut it. A broadcast doesn't get there. Online interactivity still misses the mark.

There is something bigger and much simpler than any form of mediation. Non-mediation.

Not just in the sense that we're both there, we're all in this together, blah blah blah get it into your heads that we're in the twenty-first century.

It is the ability to touch, the most intimate thing in the whole world. I can stare into your eyes until the cows come home - and I can do it from Ghana, underwater or in space. 

What I can't do is touch you. I can do it emotionally, but even this isn't the same as brushing my hand against your cheek, breaking your nose with my elbow, pulling a splinter out of your finger.

I can touch the screen and it does things. I can touch the same screen you do. In no way does this replicate the truth of the exchange.

In the theatre, protocol often dictates we don't touch - but that doesn't change the fact that we can, and this is (as yet) the one place media can't remediate. It can set up a series of very close approximations, but the simple sensation of two people touching can't be replicated.

It's really funny. As a somewhat brave actor, I've kissed other performers, simulated sex and appeared naked in shows but I never took into account the power of touching someone for real. The fourth-wall sets up a lovely, neat barrier that lets me do this stuff away from you, the audience. Character acting allows me to put up a barrier between me and you, the other performer.

I did a show two years ago that had no characters - we all played ourselves. I told a story in a sentence ("For a minute there, I thought I was going to be a Dad.") followed by a wordless scream. It was one of the toughest things I'd ever done because it was absolutely real - and screaming without noise is far more taxing because it offers no release.

My brother and one of his friends came to watch the show. His mate said "that's some good acting" and Liam, who I hadn't told, replied "that's not acting". The next thing that happened in the show was me rejoining the performing group and playing childhood games and night after night someone different would come to me and touch me, on the arm, a hug, a shove, and I'd be less alone.

I can't fuck you or hit you or smell you through a screen. I can simulate it, share elements of it, but it isn't it unless we can feel it, physically feel it. No matter how intellectual, our brains are trapped in bodies and bodies learn through touch. Helen Keller anyone? And for once I'm not being a smart arse.

So I'm off to touch my two oldest friends for their 30ths, because I want to feel the dirt that makes them real. Mediation, no matter how intricate, just won't cut it this time.

Time and Touch, Here and Now

Reading back over my stuff is a nightmare.

I spent ages today moving and rewriting a few paragraphs, only to find that they fit better where they already are, with a few minor alterations.

What this bouncing around has done though is give me slightly better appreciation for what I'm trying to do on the whole.

It's not good enough to say theatre = new media, the end! What I'm really looking at is what specific parts the two share and why this makes them more aligned than every other link identified thus far.

So, let's take a quick look.

The big things I'm approaching are participation, interactivity, haptics and co-presence. By big things, I mean these are the ones that have been distilled from the extra pile of immediacy, hypermediacy, representation, presentation, virtual and actual.

The latter group are means, the former, ends.

What?

Okay.

By playing with the latter, the former can be altered. If I give you an immediate virtual representation, this limits you to a very base level of participation, what I might call passive participation depending on the medium. For example, if I were to buy you a movie ticket, you could watch the film, but you couldn't touch it, edit it, comment on it (while it was happening) or even really do anything other than sit there and watch it - or leave. As soon as you leave, the extremely passive participation (spectator-ship) is over, and there are no links to the film at all. Fake world (virtual), adherent to filmic convention (generally immediate in terms of transparency) and screened after the fact (representation).

If I give you a hypermediate actual presentation, the whole equation changes. "Here's a ticket to paintball" I say. "Enjoy".

Firstly, you're in a group (participant - you actually have to do something other than sit. Actually, even if you just sit that constitutes a conscious act). Secondly, you're in a team (interactive/co-present - teamwork and opposition, which means what you do has an effect on others, and the converse applies). Next up, you have a gun (hypermediate/presentation: sure it's fake - and you know it - but it fires in real-time and the green paint - also fake - hurts when it hits) and to round it out, you have a gun (haptic - you can touch everything).

Pretty extreme examples (I mean, I could have got you conscription to go to war, but paintball seems a little more fun), but what becomes the real deal from this is that time and touch show above the rest.

Time presents across all real-time (what a surprise?) media. New Media stuff can be done as it happens, as can theatre. Film can't. Television is fifty-fifty.

Touch is the other big unit. You can't touch a film (and make changes). You can't touch a TV (and make changes). You can touch New Media and make changes. If you touch anything in theatre, it changes.

All of these (participation, interactivity, haptics and co-presence) are greatly enhanced by touch and time. All of these (immediacy, representation, virtual) have no requirement of either. All of these ( hypermediacy, presentation and actual) are somewhere in the middle, and if played with can have a greater effect on these (participation, interactivity, haptics and co-presence) than these (immediacy, representation, virtual) will.

That's not 100% true, but it's a pretty good general rule, and think if I align my chapters a little more like that I'll be sitting prettier than I am now.

The problem is that today, I lost touch - and time is off the essence. I'm going to write it off as 'calm before the storm', but it's about time I got back in touch with what I'm doing - writing about the here and now.

Did I say this was a nightmare?

Super Quick

Neal gave me feedback on my stuff so far.

Most of it I've already hit (thanks to Larissa), but he raised a good point about what I'll call 'internal clarity', or each sentence/paragraph/chapter relating to the overall piece.

Because a lot of my thesis has been written across different time-spans, not everything fits. Some bits work better than others, but as a whole its a little patchy.

Here's an idea of how to make it work overall:

Chapter One – What is New Media?: Understanding New vs Old.

Chapter Two – Liveness and Co-presence: Theatre vs Recorded.

Chapter Three – Convergence and Hapticity: Where New meets Old.

Overall – Theatre’s character is already in use for each of these, whether to borrow, remediate or predate. New Media’s only introduction is the digital, but theatre integrated this almost as it was born, making theatre “the great remediator” as well as the end-point of New Media. While NM seeks to obtain the character of theatre, theatre just absorbs NM into the repertoire; as such, theatre reigns supreme, the oldest media also being the newest because of it’s capacity to absorb, remediate or converge, regardless of terminology.

That's the gist. Larissa just sent through revisions (didn't see her today) so about to have a look, but I figure if I'm a bit more distinct about my chapters, the whole piece will end up a little more coherent, as crazy as that sounds.

That'll do for now, but watch this space. I have a feeling that the next week has a lot more in store.

Medium talk, Danish.

Last night I went out for my best friend from Monash's 25th.

It was a great night. We went to some fancy cocktail bar and I was wearing flanno (flanny for the Melbournites) so I didn't theoretically fit in at all, but it was great to catch up with the old mates - and some new ones.

What made me laugh was just how easily old friends (re)connect. I arrived on time and it took about 10 minutes for half a dozen of us to describe our last year to each other, at which point we grabbed martinis and talked about now.

By this I mean making real conversation off the cuff, without having to rely on old stories to stimulate input. One of Suz's best mates I'd never met - a Dane by the name of 'Danish' - had flown in from Denmark as a surprise. At six foot eight, the guy was a behemoth, but we hit it off instantly, cracking terrible jokes and talking about the differences between our penal systems.

The drink and the conversation flowed freely, moving effortlessly between big things and little things, but what really stood out was that everyone present could talk to anyone else about almost anything and there was nothing to be embarrassed about, regardless of how well we knew each other.

As a cohort, we made a crack about leaving all of this off Facebook, which we did. For a few hours, we just existed in a world of our own, not answering phones, not being distracted.

Several of us talked about our research, others chatted about work or whatever was on our minds.

As the place closed, I shared a cab with one of the girls and she ended up staying at my place, with all of the things that style of interaction usually entails.

At around 6am, I sat on my balcony with a cup of tea and watched the sun come up. I watched it until I started to nod off, and crawled into my shared bed for a few hours of sleep.

I awoke to a note on my neighbouring pillow with thanks for the evening, some lipstick - and no phone number.

I smiled, then cooked up a great breakfast before riding in to work.

I had almost no hangover, even though I'd consumed the same quantity as a Darwinian polar bear and a giant Danish Ned Kelly lookalike. Sure I burned a fair bit off during early morning 'exercise', but there was something about the nature of the entire evening that just screamed pre-media.

I can't quite put my finger on it but I felt like I was 20 again, with the added bonus of ten years extra experience.

This is what I'm trying to get at with theatre as a precursor to (and aim of) new media. There is something about connecting that can't be done through mediation, but as the world becomes more mediated we have to rely on it regardless. The gist is to make it as invisible as possible, and the way is to skip small-talk, to go straight to medium talk.

If we connect without restraint (except for general manners), we become closer, no matter what the mediation. Theatre has this always in mind, but much new media still focuses on the ability to capture moments, even though lives are not just snapshots of food but the experience of eating it.

There is some slow dramaturgy at work here (see Eckersall) about tangible sensations like eating, knitting, gardening and quite possibly sex that cannot be replicated in static media.

This cannot be broached in small talk either. At the very least we need discussion to begin with the medium.

Again with the English, Danish.

Different Ways too the Same Place

So I spoke to my Mum last night and we talked about our research and writing styles (she's studying speech pathology at Newcastle Uni). She seems to do things the other way around to me.

By this I mean I rant about stuff I know about and am pretty concise with the things I don't.

We also talked about our Supervisors and that goes in reverse too. I send Larissa stuff via email, so when we meet we pretty much hang out, exchange stories and tell jokes over ginger tea, then really quickly talk about the work. Mum sends life stuff to her super and they talk shop in the meetings.

I spoke to a lovely girl at work today who stresses about the work by reading too much then writes everything at the last minute. I write volumes because editing is my bane - the more I have the more I can refine.

I'm off to see another friend doing Honours elsewhere (Monash) who has just finished his performance project and is freaking out about having to write.


I thought I'd be under word count, but I'll be looking at 15-16K on Friday when I'm all written up.

I'm taking the train up to NSW because it gives me more time to write than the usual airplane angle.

Never thought I'd like writing a thesis, but I do. Never thought I'd take the train again but I will. Never thought I'd meet so many people doing research but I have.

Whatever works for you is how you do it. Sometimes it isn't what you think will work, but as long as it gets you there it is totally awesome. No matter which way we go about it, we all end up at the same place.

Windy

Today was both forms of the word, with gusts attempting to blow me off my vehicle as I traveled along my curving pathway.

Another terrible sleep, but the gym session this morning pumped me up to get some serious editing out of the way - and I knocked over the last of the stuff Larissa had already looked through. I got stuck on a pair of leading paragraphs (between the first and second chapters), but opening a previous iteration of my essay and looking at that really helped.

At this point, I'm actually looking at three chapters around 4000 words each - effectively a 14-15K essay. The problem is, it's all good stuff. Methinks I'll need to finish my final chapter over the weekend and start writing an intro/conclusion to get a feel for what is really necessary. If it all works then hey - at least I'm not short.

One particular thing that wound me up was the (to me) annoying convention of having to continually explain (in the form of spelling out) what I'm trying to do. JUST READ THE FUCKING THING AND YOU'LL GET IT. Not that hard.

Larissa did tell me something that made it a little less annoying, which is that my markers are much more likely to read the thesis out of order. The idea becomes more along the lines of putting markers throughout for the markers, so no matter how windy - or windy - there are checkpoints along the way to keep everything steady.

English is a horrible language at times, isn't it?

Anyhow, after doing the latest edit on part 1, I had a look over part 2 and realised that for the most part (again with the English) I'm up to speed there. I need to fold in some Convergence stuff a little earlier and perhaps be a little less abrupt with the Co-presence, which means I can round the whole thing up with some Hapticity, rub my hands together and open a beer.

It's a windy road on a windy day, but I'm staying on my bike and loving the ride!

Balls

I awoke early this morning after a pretty poor sleep. I was tired from the get go, but I couldn't get back to sleep (there is a lot of sun in my room) so I rolled out for a coffee and got to work.

For ease of it all, my work is basically split in two, so for the moment I'll talk about it like that. On the one hand is the stuff I've already received feedback on (Chapter 1 and most of Chapter 2) and the other side is the rest.

I began with part 2. I started cutting out a few superfluous sentences, tightened up a few bits here and there and found a couple of spots to insert some Eckersall. But for some reason I couldn't focus on it, so I went back the first part (earlier than I might've liked) and worked though that.

I added a couple of paragraphs, moved a few things and deleted all the 'red ink' (the comments in Word) Larissa had left that I didn't need, like spelling/grammatical errors, which left me with about 6 things to work on. I just kind of wore it down until I got to this one place that had me stumped.

Larissa had written in a pair of sentences that didn't fit where they were in almost any way - as far as I could tell. What did I do? I stared blankly at them for a while before tearing up three paragraphs to force them in. Silent movies? Lucille Ball? Jesus...

I got a little bit into the process before being overcome with proper exhaustion. So I went for a walk around the block, sat back down and worked through some more.

It isn't done, but it isn't too far off either. I can't spend too much more time on that section either, because I have a lot more to take care of, but if I can do the reverse of today tomorrow (knock out part 1 and fire up on part 2) I'll be in a good place, with - ideally - a full draft, partially edited, by Monday.

The point is that no matter how tired you are, you can always squeeze out a little more, and sometimes that little bit puts you in a good place for when you get back into it. The more you put it off, the worse it gets, so just get it done.

The other point is that I am exhausted. Not physically tired or mentally fatigued, but all of the above at once, and I could really use a good rest, so I'm going to watch the rest of this documentary about a guy with a massive scrotum and stop whinging about my relatively small problem.

4500: Pens and Swords

Today I went to the gym and moved over four metric tonnes in about three-quarters of an hour.

For an 80-ish kg guy with (really) bad knees, shocking ankles (from breaks) and a bung shoulder, I'd say I didn't do too badly.

My trainer/brother was pretty stoked at my resolve, and because we trained together I got to see what my potential might be. He's an inch taller than me, 10-15 kegs heavier than me and can throw almost twice the weight I can. As I loaded his weights onto the bars, I realised that since this year I have improved beyond the point I thought I could do at all, only to see that it's not even close to what I can actually achieve.

After the work out, I rolled home and sat before my laptop. I read over the first round of stuff I sent Larissa. I deleted the (four metric tonnes of) grammatical errors, and sat with the notes, all six of them. There were a couple of 'insert paragraphs here', a pair of 'goods' (do nothing, this works) and a pair of 'Larissa thinks you should write this here'. The first two I'm stewing over, the second two give me hope and the final two I'm not sure I agree with - one because it's in the wrong place, the other because it doesn't seem to fit at all.

After reading that stuff, I dived into the rest instead. I pulled the 4500 words I'd written for the end and started hitting them with a view to refining, rewriting and editing them into something I might use to hit the rest from another angle.

I deleted excess. I moved a few sentences here and there and all of a sudden I found a paragraph in my third chapter to switch with the last one in my second.

HOLY SHIT.

This one paragraph changed everything. It gave me a way to move what I already have into better order (i.e. edit) and fit what I don't into gaps.

I don't want to jinx it, so I won't go into anymore for the moment. Also, I moved a few tonnes of both mental and physical weight so I'm pretty tired, and it's 'Breaking Bad' night if no-one else minds.

Pens or Swords? Which one hurts more? Which one feels better? After 4500, I still can't tell...

Read it and weep

I don't have any writing focus today, so after my meeting with Larissa (which went pretty well - took fifteen minutes and was mostly us just talking about unrelated stuff) I headed home to relax.

Which means reading up on the stuff I need to know more about.

First stop was a quick look at Margaret Morse and Erving Goffman. Goffman looks at the world through the lens of theatre, but in the realm of sociology. No need to go deep, but worth mentioning him along the way. Morse does a lot more stuff with interfaces, especially in the progression from film through TV to new media. She has a little theatre about her, but is more on the side of NM which is what I need to chuck in.

I spent more time reading Peter Eckersall (one of my markers). I had an idea to write some of his stuff on adaptation into the mix, but I found his work on dramaturgy to be more up to the task. There are some pretty good articles that really fit with the convergence idea whilst taking into account the history of theatre. They look like this:

http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/doi/full/10.1080/13528165.2012.696864#tabModule

http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/fullText;dn=029826682408264;res=IELHSS

The last of them led me back to Hans Lehmenn, but into a different essay of his I can't get my hands on called "Mirror Mirror, Fourth Wall" in a collection called "Theatre after Theatre".

I really want to read it but I'm also a little terrified that I've finally found the person who has already beaten me to my essay in the form of an old German Professor of performance.

When I do read it I'll cry either way (joy or despair).

Read it and weep you might say...

Sunday

I worked today, and everyone was in a foul mood, which means we all laughed at each other for being so silly. Laughing at it took all the power out of the negative emotions so we all ended up having a good day.

I have some sleep to catch up on because of my fun/work filled weekend, but also because I have a big week ahead of me. Even while I've been having a real weekend, I still managed to take care of most of the little tasks that often get in the way of writing.

Tomorrow I have class and meet Larissa directly after that. I moved my personal training session to Tuesday so I can write directly after meeting the Boss. I have a funny positivity having handed in a draft and getting decent feedback. I WANT TO DO BIG THINGS.

But i can't ignore the little ones along the way. As I do, the big thing loses its sense of joy.

This is very strange to me. I feel really happy with where I am, unlike a couple of weeks ago where I was quite worried. I'm at the point where I could actually apply for a PhD and might even be ready to do it. I've finally been enjoying the lifestyle of an academic, writing about stuff I like and missing it when I'm not doing it. Not missing it like a crutch when your ankle is still tender, or missing it like the girl you were supposed to marry but fucked it up with ambition.

Missing it like performing, like something you just should be doing without 100% knowing why, like when you get up on a nice day and smile, even though you like the rain.

Sunday is my liminal day, the day that everyone has off and I almost always work. But on days like this, work is fun, so it isn't really work.

Sunday puts it all into context. If I can sit here at my clean desk with my neat computer while a documentary plays in the background and enjoy the first-world happiness associated with writing about myself to myself, then I can't really complain. The things will happen when they do, and I won't miss out on anything as long as I'm happy with where I am at the present.

It's a nice night to sit on the balcony and breathe the air before bed. Happy Sunday.

Late and Great

Hey guys,

I know it's late but this is what happens when you work in hospitality and have messed up sleeping patterns.

Anyhow, I had a quick read over the feedback The Boss sent me and for the first time there was not one, but two sections where she actually wrote 'Good'. One even had a smiley face.

It's nuts to think that this little word can have such an impact but it did, does, and makes me want to write better.

And this was the two-chapter draft. She hasn't shot feedback through for the three chapter version, except to say the concepts are clearer and the writing is improving.

Note to self: go with my gut.

Larissa said to check out Margaret Morse and a couple of other things, but Morse stuck.

Why? Because Morse leads into haptic interfaces, which in my extensive excess writing (stuff that didn't make the cut) is all over the place, citing theatre as a physical medium that is a clear precursor/inter-influence on haptic media.

I'm tired, hungover, hungry and a little drunk, but more excited than anything, because my gut told me to do the haptic thing and I'm going to chase it down.

The other thing my gut told me about was adaptation. By this I mean that theatre is a medium where a script is just the bones and a play can be made in any way at any time, which makes it like new media in that editing can be done on the fly and there is no 'right' way to do anything. I was calling it 'concrete' vs 'fluid' in my head, where concrete media is made solid and not subject to change (photo, painting, film [especially] and TV) and fluid can be made anew as necessary (theatre and new media - not all new media but a large majority).

Theatre, immersive theatre in particlar is like a game engine. There is a skeleton, but each experience is different. Another thread, but a great one to chase down, possibly at a later date.

Anyway, the adaptation thing (making any number of shows from a base script) also lets me link Eckersall (one of my thesis markers) into the mix, which then ties into the rest of the piece.

Where once I was worried about not being able to generate enough content, now I'm concerned that I might end up with too much, but that's what the Boss is for - to tell me when I'm good and tell me when I'm not. I'm starting to think that I might actually finish around 15000, which may be to my benefit all things told.

I want to write something compelling, but it also needs to be entertaining, otherwise it isn't me at all.

The late great thing is not just linked to the time of the post and the feedback, but because all of this got me thinking about 2010, a year when I did a show, wrote my own version of it and saw a different version that same year. It was the Shakespeare classic of Midsummer Night's Dream, and the director was none other than the late, great Peter Oyston. A director, a mentor and a friend, Peter founded the VCA as well as the Circus Oz. It's great to see I'm at RMIT where the Oz archive is a huge thing, but also work with VCA and do my own thing, much of it influenced by Peter. Plus I used to hang out with a 72 year old that was more childish than myself, but with a way nicer house.

To Lateness, To Greatness and Peter.

Thinking Cap

I think I found my thinking cap. I've been wearing this old beanie that doesn't fit properly. My Nanna knitted it and when I wear it, I get good vibes, even if I look like a dodgy prisoner.

Anyway, the hat has given me 2400 words in two days. I'm over count (10.5k) with a section to go.

It's not great stuff, but it isn't terrible, and the fact that it is out of me and on paper is a massive relief.

First hurdle was being able to write 10000 words that make sense together. Reached - and a quarter of it came in two days and a beanie.

Tonight I try for the bibliography, just in case I get stuck at work and don't get the time to finish the last chunk. Also, I have a feeling that even though I've been pretty good when it comes to Zotero, there are going to be a few things to go after or rearrange (like the fact I have some authours with the same names and such, and a couple of book chapters that I've saved the book for rather than the chapter).

But I have to be up early and this bibliography needs looking at. Where's that beanie got to...?

Now

Gotta get it out now before it fades.


I finished the Hypermediate Theatre section (it'll never be finished but it'll do for now), then did Virtual Reality, Remediation and Theatre (too short but good enough) and also killed Gob Squad. Got halfway into Punchdrunk, realised I had 1200 good words in a day (the same as the last five days total) and opened a bottle of wine...

Anyway, aside from wine being far less inhibiting than beer, I realised that I may need to add ABC (AvatarBodyCollision) to the mix.

Reasoning:

The 'Squad hit the nail when it comes to interactivity across new/old interfaces, as well as firing up the presence/co-presence angle.
P Drunky destroy the VR aspect in terms of immersion and the convergent aspect of stuff creating other stuff beyond the event (have a look at Causey or Jenkins as to how this works).

ABC work in almost the reverse aspect, which is why they're so powerful, basically creating totally digital theatre that adheres to both theatrical and new media convention. Sounds like FU(% 4(( to you but is everything to me (sorry - that's the wine talking).

Anyhow, I'm 2300 words into a 3300 word chapter with 2 days in the bag, only my days are terribly full and this chapter is moving towards 5K rather than the other way.

Done... for NOW...

Australia's Got Talent - Really!

Today I had a good work out, which pepped me up to get some writing done.

I'm really happy to be in the final chapter, and as usual the Boss has sent me in a great direction.

This chapter is shaping up to be something pretty cool. It starts off with a couple of quotes - one theatrical, one new media - that essentially say the same thing. After this I land in hypermediate theatre territory, where I explain that theatre on both (historical) sides of the fourth-wall are relatively identical. Following this, I have a quick chat about Brecht (where I'm up to now), explaining his 'Alienation Effect' as not so alienating, which is also a huge feature of new media and present day (Brecht is a little bit dead) experiences of interfaces. This leads straight into the ever-present commonalities of theatre - which align almost perfectly with new media. VICTORY!

Commonalities are the usual (participation, interaction and shared experience) but with a few tiny tweaks the whole thing merges. If I can add a slight addendum (co-presence existing in the virtual as well as the physical - which is possible if I use theatre remediating the digital as is the case with AvatarBodyCollision) then co-presence becomes a non-issue - or more correctly, a shared issue - and convergence emerges as the telling factor, as co-presence can be simulated somewhat through television. This ties straight back into theatre as a hypermedium, where anything goes. Theatre can use anything in the arsenal, steal stuff from everywhere and the only other media type that can make this claim is new media. Blah blah blah.. Theatre 1: Everything else 0.

Seriously, Larissa knows her stuff, and knows how to send me down a useful rabbit-hole. Go Team!

Anyway, the title of this post should probably be addressed. I was watching the aforementioned show and this guy came out and did this awesome bit where the mic-stand was out of reach (which means it became a silent routine) and he got into one of those aluminium tube things that you might see in an industrial air-con unit and manipulated it to eventually reach the mic.

It was probably the most absorbing thing I've seen on TV in a long time (I actually stopped chewing just in case he said something) and it was clear that the judges and the TV audience were in the same state I was in.

Later, a guy came out with a band and did an amazing rendition of Prince's 'Purple Rain' (dude had a killer voice and didn't overdo anything and the band were excellent).

I couldn't help but laugh. I've been so caught up in writing about mediation that I've been really critical about what I watch, and I'm a super harsh theatre/film/tele-critic to begin with. It was so nice to genuinely be taken away, immediately as much as possible given the mediation, and just see something wonderful, regardless of how it was transmitted.

I think it had something to do with multi-remediation going on within the program (it's live physically co-present performance, recorded with a live studio audience, set up in the format of a somewhat vaudeville variety show, complete with theatrical frontality) and that as bogus as the show often is, it has less manufacturing than so many other reality TV programs on at the moment - like Big Brother for instance. There is very little narrative (following stories of contestants); overall it is just stuff happening, and if it's good stuff you want to see more.

Personally, I don't care about the people, just the performances, which I guess rings makes sense. I like to see great theatre, but I have no interest in celebrity. But that's another rope for another day.

Australia really does have some serious talent.

Bullets work

I've been keeping an eye on my bullet journal and the damned thing works. Ben and I were talking about it today and while we differ slightly on what a task and an event is, the rest works a treat.

On that note, I wrote a bit of an annotated bibliography of a couple of my main texts for Neal:

1) summary of the reading; why written, main arguments

2) your evaluation; who is it written for? context? what are the particular strengths (in your opinion), similarities or differences compared with other things you've read, weaknesses?

3) how you might use it; what does it help you understand better? how might you apply it? Do you see things differently? How might you question its assumptions?

- Bolter and Grusin 'Remediation' (1999)

- Auslander 'Liveness' (1999/2008)

- Manovich 'The Language of New Media' (2001)

- Chapple and Kattenbelt 'Intermediality in Theatre and Performance' (2006)

Remediation

1) Basically, it's a revision of Marshall McLuhan's 'Understanding Media'. The book presents a trinity of interrelated concepts - immediacy, hypermediacy and remediation - and argues that all (pictoral) visual media since the Renaissance adheres to these rules. It touts that immediacy is the ideal pursuit, and hypermediacy has emerged as a contingent strategy to better reach immediacy. It uses these two concepts to view media evolution and the current media state, calling the interplay between the two remediation.

2) It is written for new media enthusiasts and theoreticians at the turn of the 21st century, especially those that work in graphics and digital imagery. It presents a strong case for what I call 'static' visual media, but it kind of falls apart at the point where media starts to move and become participatory or cooperative. Again, great for a one-one relationship between viewer/object, but not great when that expands to many-one. Doesn't address theatre. Has been widely accepted into practically everything - at least the historical aspect (new recycling old and vice-versa) if not the actual ideas of immediacy and hypermediacy as they are.

3) I use it as a framework to approach theatre, addressing theatre as an interface and a visual medium. It helps me understand that the theatre I like and the other theatre out there have one difference - an interface. I see that if theatre can be seen to have an interface, then the progression of photo-film-TV-new media is actually more in line with theatre than photography. I see things differently by a long way; immediacy means something else, interface means something else, hypermediacy is way cooler than immediacy. I question the static media train, the dominance of immediacy and the evolution of VR without considering theatre (immersive theatre especially).

Liveness

1) Main ideas are that until liveness existed, all events occurred in the same 'time'. Since recording media entered the world the whole thing can be split into live, mediated and mediatized. Live doesn't necessarily mean co-present; there is kind of a hierarchy of classic liveness to totally delayed replication. Also, big focus on television as the dominant media form and how growing up in a mediatized culture affects how we view liveness and co-presence.

2) Written for those that love going to events and wondering why the scene is drying up. Written to see liveness and co-presence as evolving phenomena. Written in a very easy to read manner and adherent to pop-culture, but also sort of lacking in the sense of classics. Has a great argument when it comes to the court-section (at least in terms of why co-presence matters) but does skip around a bit. Big fan of the link between television and theatre in terms of liveness and immediacy, nice way to approach the differences between theatre, film and TV, and the rewrite of the TV chapter also addresses Bolter and Grusin. Doesn't pick a side regarding pros and cons of technology, which is good or bad depending on how you like your arguments.

3) I'll use it to separate out all the pieces in the second chapter, and I'll throw it in to the co-presence bit at the end. Also helps me identify a working definition for theatre, which might end up being almost the same for the new media bit if co-presence fits in that sense. It would certainly work if virtual and and physical converge into one, but i'm still unsure if I buy that. I certainly see television and theatre differently, especially in the way that each has remediated the other - and continues to do so. Be that as it may, the book doesn't deal with the actual energy exchange between those co-present in a physical sense which is a big gap for a live performer like myself. I might skip it for this essay, but overall that is a huge question.

The bullet journal reminded me I had to do it, so I did. Good lesson. If I keep all my notes in one place I end up doing everything, and if I write them down in real world pen, I remember them.

Take a bullet.

Convergence

Everything is seemingly coming together.

I had a little bit of a sick feeling in my stomach this morning, expecting that Larissa might just burn my draft and shoot me (a bit rough, but I have been reading some fairly brutal manga lately).

Anyway, she said 'On Track', which is nice, and gave me a few things to look into, the main one being convergence.

For once, I've already seen something before she sent it to me! I found this great paper on convergence and was reading it a week or two ago, wondering where to fit it in to my essay. Now I know if I dig a little more, I'll have it up and running in no time.

The more I investigate this stuff, the more I'm reminded of a pair of works I've done and one work I saw at the Opera House. It also inspires me to make some more theatre, and I have my absolute baby I want to operate on.

But one step at a time. For now, further investigation into Convergence and Peter Eckersall, who has kindly agreed to examine my work.

Also, I might have to try and get a couple of interviews done. Sigh.

A least it's converging...

Bullets

Started the ol' Bullet Journal today and realised I haven't blogged in a little while.

That's okay because I've been writing like a madman. I've got a full draft for the first two chapters (7200 words) and some notes and pieces for chapter three.

What I've figured out is that I've done almost all of the theatre writing, which means I just have to get on the new media train.

I came to a neat discovery about ways to break the fourth-wall too. There are four main ways to alter the wall, three for breaking and one for erasing, which actually has greater likelihood of enforcing.

1) Shrinking.

This is where the screen/interface gets smaller (theatre/film becomes TV, TV becomes new media, especially tablets or phones). The more portable the object, the smaller the screen - and the higher chance of being interrupted by outside stimulus. While shrinking means better access, it also means less concentration.

2) Crossing.

The term is a little contentious, but crossing is the ability to move between interfaces, or to change what is coming through a single screen. Channel surfing on a TV or switching between windows on a computer would be examples of the latter and multiple displays (running two monitors simultaneously, reading a book and watching TV concurrently) or split screens (including two things happening independently on a stage) would be examples of the former. Crossing offers more choice (if one thing isn't doing it for you the other one/s might) but it also lessens the ability to adhere solely to one thing at a time, even if it's just a niggling curiosity as to what might be on the other channel.

3) Breaking.

This can happen in a variety of ways, but the best way to categorise a break is when the virtual world is ruptured by the real world. Virtual worlds are stable representations on the opposite side of the interface to the one you are on. The real world is the actual world you inhabit. If you look at it like this, breaking is pretty simple to accomplish. An actor forgets a line and you remember that you're watching a play. Illusion broken. Your phone rings at the cinema. Virtual world busted. A power outage hits and the TV turns off. You drop your PSP.

The list here is pretty expansive. What becomes really evident though is the more active the involvement, the higher the chance of a break. Cinema and TV are less likely to break than either theatre or new media, precisely because of the combination of higher participation and fragility of their interfaces. Theatre has no tangible screen, which means any malfunction has no delay and a lot of people are going to notice it at the same time. An actor slips and everyone - other actors included - gasps. A server crashes and everyone swears. Your mobile screen cracks and you can't stop thinking about it because everything you look at on your phone is fractured. You fart in the theatre and can't stop thinking about it because someone might notice, especially if had beans for dinner.

Breaks happen in real-time and that's another thing theatre and new media always have over other interfaces. That's where the fragility comes from. Touchscreens are often capacitive, which means they respond to signals from the body. Live, co-present performance is exactly the same as performers respond to the signals from the audience. In both cases the delay is negligible and the glass is really, really thin...

4) Expanding.

In order to combat the problems of the interface, the best way is to make it so huge that the edges don't exist. Virtual reality is the new media way of erasing the interface. By filling the field of vision entirely, the screen is expanded to a degree beyond a typical interface and it becomes resistant to most breakages, power glitches excluded. Theatre has adopted this immersive tactic by creating spaces without stages, converting buildings into virtual worlds or creating performances that exist in unbounded real world space. If there aren't any walls, then you can't break them, right? No interface means no chance of hypermediacy. At least that's the idea.

Still, in order to erase an interface a huge degree of hypermediacy is involved. VR is totally constructed, and the only way to bypass that is to accept it and move on. VR hasn't quite made it there but that's where its headed. Theatre comes much closer. As theatre has always been an obvious construct (I'm just talking in terms of history - as a general rule theatre doesn't take itself too seriously EVER), participants are more inclined to leave judgement at the door and roll with theatre's virtual world. Audiences accept that the whole thing is imaginary and quickly adjust to the transparent immediacy of the experience. Plus there are often other people around in the same boat so there is a very communal, participatory and interactive vibe going on. Even when the performers are separate, audiences have each other to interact with, and when performers integrate it just becomes one huge interactive mess - in a good way.

This is what new media is chasing. Even though it 'started' the idea (and by this I mean new media claims to be the way to get everyone in better than any other media can), theatre grabbed the idea, ran with it and succeeded beyond new media's current capacity if not its wildest dreams.


In this way, theatre remediates new media as the converse occurs. Other interim forms (film and TV) try their best (especially TV) and while TV at least can claim itself as a real-time media, it can't yet attain the interactivity presented by theatre and new media. Film doesn't even factor into the equation.

No wonder theatre practitioners feature so heavily in new media experimentation. Anything goes in theatre so it makes a perfect breeding ground for, well, anything. New media adds the option of doing anything anywhere. While interactive participatory stuff is everywhere in new media (Facebook, Second Life, MMOGs, etc.), until VR exists everywhere, you still have to go somewhere to experience it. And as soon VR gets to that point it'll just become immersive digital theatre anyway, and for anyone that knows about the work of Helen Varley Jamieson, Blast Theory or much of the British-German performance scene, experiments are underway - and not too far off.

Time to bite the bullet?

500

I had nothing going into today.

I couldn't hold focus for more than about 5mins. There were only three out of seven, and none of us in a particularly positive frame of mind.

Class aside, I walked out to my desk and went from Chapter 2 1800, to Chapter 2 2300. There is a huge difference between those numbers. One is halfway, the other only needs another 1000. Clearly the mathematics doesn't work out, but that's the nature of the game. It's all about where you feel.

I rolled home and managed to sort my computers out, which is a big thing. This way, I can leave a laptop at my desk and at home. The lighter the load between the two, the more likely I am to make the journey - and the more likely I am to produce work. For some reason, home sucks to study at. I have a feeling it kicked in when I heard the news, but that could be my imagination. Regardless, I work better alone and in space, and the desk at the Hub gives me both - as does my local library.

Anyway, I finished the theatre-film section. I'm on the TV slice with an aim to the new media chunk. Can't wait to be past the 'immediacy' chapter, which is kind of funny considering how obsessed I was with immediacy at the start of the year.

But I'm starving so I'm off to feed, shower and hopefully have a good sleep. I had a glimmer of sleep last night so if that's any indicator, perhaps I can catch a restful night tonight.

Sleep tight fellow lovers. May you all get a good 500 tonight.

Stalling

So zero proper writing today but a few idea chunks to mull over and put into practice.

Did I tell you I got a desk in the Design Hub? I went and used it last week and just ripped through a thousand words in about two hours, and I'm allowed the space Mondays through Wednesdays.

I'll be in there for the next three days and I'll be working up a storm because I don't really have anymore excuses. Fuck whether I feel like it or not - so long as I can knock out the first draft I know I can just edit it until it's great, and if I can do it by COB Thursday I also have time to apply for PhD's.

Again, not sure if I'll do it next year (or if I'll even be accepted!) but worth the experience. I'll do it at some point for certain, so if some poor schmo decides to offer me money I'll take it. If not, I'll work and write until some poor schmo offers me money!!

I have a lot of other life stuff over the next 8 weeks so I have to be really productive with the time I have. I was contemplating taking a train up to NSW so I could get work done without moving around too much - but that is quite an expensive journey.

Anyway, I have a good direction, some good references and a great space to write. I've planned out my September calender, sorted my bicycle and cleaned out my computer.

Time to stop stalling.

Whoops

Mis-timed my work schedule today. Thought I had work at 8pm but it was actually at 3pm. Luckily I'm pretty close so I wasn't very late. Pretty hungry now though!

It did ruin my writing schedule for the day, but that just means two sessions tomorrow instead of one. Tomorrow's aim is to get chapter 2 done or as close as possible. I have a feeling chapter 2 will bleed heavily into chapter 3, and chapter 3 will cycle back into chapter 1 when it's all done which is exactly what I'm looking for. Just need to spit out the words.

This downtime has been great for reading, which in turn has given me a lot more time to focus on the real crux of my essay - the fourth-wall.

If new media is all about participation and interaction, theatre is the artform that best offers these ideas and it did so way before the introduction of interfaces. The newness of new media is in it's ability to bridge distance, but otherwise it adheres to the general theatrical model. While theatre's fourth-wall can be demonstrated as an interface both of itself and in terms of influence on the progression to new media, theatre also anticipated the breaking of this wall as the dominant cultural desire. New media remediates theatrical style and content where theatre remediates new media objects. While the two remediate each other, new media could not exist without theatre but theatre has no requirement for new media.

That's a bit strong but it's kind of the gist.

Man, I need to eat something. Peace.

Back from the dead II

Clearly I've been offline for a while.

I suppose I should make it clear. This post is exactly as it sounds. I was back home in NSW burying one of my best friend's who decided after a long battle with bipolar and schizophrenia that enough was enough and it was time for a change of scenery.

It was a pretty rough ride for those left behind, but on the bright side I saw (and drank with) loads of my friends and families.  Circumstances bad. Reunion good.

Everyone who hasn't seen me over the last couple of weeks has greeted me with the approximate title of this post, which is pretty funny in a morbidly literal sense. All jokes aside, this week I returned to routine (work, gym and writing) and I feel pretty okay.

I'm aiming (high) to have a full draft done around the 12th. Chapter 1 draft is complete, chapter 2 is half done with a pretty solid plan for the remainder and chapter 3 has parts sorted but needs a lot more work. I've been reading like crazy because writing has been a little difficult and the reading has taken my thesis on a slight journey which is both good and bad. On the good side I'm really getting into this genealogy of theatre to new media and back. On the downside, I can already tell where I'll need to do some rewriting - which in a backhanded way is kind of a good thing.

This draft is mainly to get my references in order, or at least to show where and how I might use them. I've shredded my original material, but not in a bad way. I've just been less precious about it.

Sadly I'm not writing in that vein, so the next few days will hopefully be a little more to do with generation. We'll see.

I'm tossing up whether to take special consideration. I know it might be necessary but if I can avoid it I will.  One thing all of this has taught me is that time is really important and how you manage it is big. Before this I figured 'go hard for a year' and then do the next thing, but what good is that if a bus rolls you out of nowhere? I have so much happening early November with friends and family I'm not sure I want to miss it, just in case.

If I need the extension I'll take it, but if I can do without I'll do just that. I'll ask the Boss, because she'll give it to me straight.

Anyway, I'm really tired. But at the very least I have someone to dedicate my work to, and that's one less thing to worry about.

Love to you and yours,

Josh

Outdoor Library

I think I've found a great place to do some writing.

My local library has this beautiful outdoor section that combines the best things for writing - sunshine, fresh air and the ambiance of 50-100 people doing the same thing I am.

It also is surrounded by a few coffee shops and a couple of nice parks, so when a break is necessary there are places to sit and enjoy the coffee.

It's really important for me to get up and move around, and a lot of my best ideas come in transit. But it's quite hard to write them down as I'm walking so to have a variety of pleasant places to sit and watch the world go by is great, because I sit and put paragraphs of thought into Evernote, then prop my Evernotes up next to me when I get back to writing.

I used to just walk around and repeat the ideas to myself in my head in the hope they would become -ingrained, but because so many ideas come flooding through at once it's important for me to get them all down.

For instance, I was writing the 'Immediacy' section in the first chapter yesterday, and realised that immediacy itself is a cultural theory, more focussed on the transfer of the content and the general desire of the people, but as soon as the focus lands on the media object, hypermediacy presents.

It seems like a pretty straightforward realisation but I've been treating the two ideas as distinct entities. However, when I read some McLuhan and Foucault, I got a better understanding of why I saw them as separate - and how they fit together.

This also had a great effect on my actual chapter, as I pulled a whole bunch out of the initial 'Remediation' section and stuffed it into where it should be - Immediacy and Hypermediacy.

The chapter now resembles this a little more:

New Media

Understanding New Media

Immediacy

Hypermediacy

Remediation

- New Media sets up the context, explaining what new media is (participatory interactive digital stuff), and a series (well, three) approaches - leading to Genealogy as (to quote Ed) the horse I'll back.

- Understanding is the introduction of Bolter and Grusin and how their theory is derived from the multiple NM approaches, functioning as cyclical rather than linear.

- Immediacy explains transparency and the cultural/linear desire that operates from then until now.

- Hypermediacy explains opacity, and the object based perspective that functions more from now until then.

- Remediation explains the overall theory as a genealogical concept, based on the archaeology of the object (THE INTERFACE). In this way, Remediation can be seen as a somewhat unified approach to both archaeology and cultural theory. It also sets up my interface for investigation (theatre's fourth-wall) as well as offering terminology with which to do so.

So Chapter One works as a mini-essay, but also a stepping stone into Chapter Two.

The thing about the next two chapters is that I'm thinking Two is Arch-focused and Three is Gene-focused. This means that chapter two will tell a linear story from the point of the fourth-wall, from inception to rise and to fall. Basically, it will be the tale of immediacy in theatre.

Three will work backwards, but not exactly in linear fashion as Hypermediacy exists both prior to and after the Wall. It is a fractured tale but that's what genealogy is all about.

Still undecided exactly which way to handle the last two chapters but I'll knock out Numero Uno and go from there.

Off to the Library!

Nuances

Alright, so I've been offline for a few days because I'm actually writing.

Anyway, the big thing for me has been twisting things into shape, inserting paragraphs into other places and all that sort of thing.

Tonight I finally stumbled across the idea that finally brings my whole essay full circle. What it requires is a return to my old essay with the ideas from my new essay. It looks a little like this:

New media
remediation
immediacy - lot
hypermediacy - little

the wall history and archeology (working forward from the rupture)
immediacy - realism
hypermediacy - non realism

the contemporary wall genealogy (working backward)
immediacy - little
hypermediacy - lot
new media

It has that nice feel of circularity, which instead of just being a device I like lines up neatly with the genealogical approach. It also gives the ol' Remediation a context, the (intangible) wall an archaeological standpoint and the contemporary wall a link to both the archaeological and the new media angles.

It lets me visit what I've already written but combine it in new ways - and makes for very sporadic writing. I can rip 500 words out of nowhere, then spend two days staring at an ancient paragraph, wondering where I should put it - or if I should keep it at all.

I've been pretty ruthless too, as ruthless as someone can be that keeps almost every version of everything ever written.

The point is that I've made a little more progress and I'm trying as hard as I can to keep it up. I've adjusted my methods, my sleep, my eating and my work all in order to make it happen, and the best I can do is a little shift.

The question is: are nuances enough? We'll wait and see

The Hangover

One thing that's good about hangovers is that for some reason I seem to do all the little things that've been building up, like washing or cancelling my internet contract.

Sure I feel like an echidna had a restless sleep in my throat, but I also have the residual sugar from too much beer which gives me the energy to do the neglected tasks.

I'm at the place where writing should start to come a little better, but because the little things have built up they've turned into a big thing, a stumbling block, and if you're going to feel like shit you might as well do something productive to pass the hours.

So today's mission is to fix the little stuff and get everything ready for some serious writing. I feel as if the writing is something I can do daily now, which is a real bonus, like each day I can put aside a few hours here and there and get some words out.

Neal said something about printing it all out, cutting it up and moving the paper into new arrangements before taking a photo and restarting. Sounds very much like a Foucaultian genealogy exercise.

Now I'm just rambling. See? Not so great for constructive work, but the hangover still works for getting things done.

Wedding

Preface: trashed.

I united two of my disparate groups today (undergrad and work). The most humorous thing was that both myself and the 'groom' (lesbian wedding) had a lot of the same friends.

I drank with both sides and spent a good hour just myself and Thom, talking about Honours and such. I also spent the same time with Fiona (currently a PhD candidate) in conversation.

We are all the same. I tried to pick up some girl, but she didn't get my ideas.

I wrote to my super, but she never replied.

Us 'academics' are ostracised. We think we're okay but we automatically move into each other's spheres. Thom's doing ancient Greek theatre and Fiona's doing hoarding in ADHD children, but we're all the same. We find it hard to relate to the rest.

I'm finally in a good place for writing, but in general I feel like an interface between everything. 

I'm tired, lonely and disconnected, but I've never felt more attuned with connecting others. At the same time I personally couldn't feel worse, seeing the clicks between everyone and seeing my own personal gap.

This is so alienating, especially for a performer (absolute team player) in experience, but it is also strangely illuminating and empowering.

But I'm cold, the girls have left and I'm tired sit his is a good time to call it.

Enter the Jewish forms of 'good luck' and 'congratulations' and we're done.

Much love to Krissy and Illana -

- Josh 

Write when you can

Twofold.

When you have spare time, write and; when you have ideas, write.

When you can't do either, read, but write as you read wherever possible, even if it isn't in the traditionally academic way.

I said earlier I've had writer's block, but that isn't strictly true. I've actually written thousands of words over the last fortnight - it's just that they don't quite work at the necessary level of current quality control.

However, as I've noted previously, editing is my bane. As such, the more I have to edit, the better the product.

I've been on a serious bender of theory writing but this has bred ideas, and while they're certainly lacking the required expansion, the fact that they are (digitally) tangible words in the same vicinity as my reasonable work makes them all the more likely to be used - and used fruitfully. 

I look at these half formed sentences and sketches of ideas and while I lack the time to address them in full presently, I can see where they might lead both in terms of my current writing and potential future research.

It is frustrating as all hell, but if they weren't there they'd be in my head and consequently depriving me of even more sleep than my present capacity entails.

Long story short: write when you can and don't beat yourself up when you can't - it'll come when it/you're ready.

G'night.

Ethics - approved!

As the title states.

Win! Now I can sort interviews proper.

On another note, I wrote some cohesive words today, basically looking at the differences between media archaeology, media genealogy and cultural theory.

I read a great article in the realm of psychology that clearly drew lines between archaeology and genealogy, specifically in terms of Foucault, which finally made the distinction clear for me.

MA is the qualitative. MG is the qualitative drawn from the MA. Sounds simple, but man it took a while to figure out.

Almost punched a customer at work today, but in the bright side, if I do get fired I'll have more time to write.

And on that note, time to eat, sleep and hopefully have a productive day tomorrow.

But just before I go: Ethics - approved!!!!!

The Wall

I have hit it in a big way.

Not the wall I've been writing about, but the wall the general populace speak of in regards to not being able to go anywhere.

Yeah, I've been sick. Yeah, I have writer's block. But the thing that got me the most was the fact I had the same dream as my oldest friend on the same night.

I was with my girlfriend. We were absolutely in love, the way that comes around once, maybe twice, in a lifetime. There were no pretenses. There were no walls. Leah was there every now and then and we were all happy, celebrating something. I think it was my birthday. Leah had a friend but I couldn't see her very well. It didn't matter. It was the perfect day.

Leah sent me a text this morning. The friend was Brooke (a good friend and an ex-housemate) but otherwise the details were near identical. The thing is, Leah (and Brooke) lives twelve-hundred kilometres from me and we see each other roughly annually. My girlfriend isn't real (I'm single), but we had dream-perfect descriptions of her, as good as a dream can be considering the shifting nature of dreamstuffs.

I woke up at 2:30am and as I gained consciousness I lost the glow of the dream. I entered the harsh reality, the headache, heartache and malaise of someone who has been in a once-in-a-lifetime love and is currently isolated due to Honours.

I didn't blame my choices. I thought about them. I couldn't stop thinking about them, and I couldn't sleep.

I couldn't cry either. That's not a new thing, but it might have been useful considering the circumstance.

Instead, I turned to my research for solace. I put on a fairly thoughtless, immediate program and watched it until I fell asleep.

You know what? That shit works. 'Realism', even in cartoon (anime) format, is a great way to ignore what is actually happening, or bypass it in the interim of being absorbed into the representation of something else.

The sleep I had was shithouse, but it was sleep I wouldn't have had otherwise.

When I crawled out of bed I read. Then I wrote a little. The reading was wide and the writing slim, but it was in a reasonable direction, kind of laying the groundwork for things to come.

I went to work and I told a couple of my friends about my shared dream. They were as surprised as I, but took the whole thing pretty well.

Then a girl walked in. We talked a bit. I didn't do my usual customer service jokes either. Instead I was me. She was she.

I'm not saying she was the girl from the dream either, but she had a fair bit in common. What was best was that she seemed to be pretty okay with me, no bullshit. It's hard to tell a dream in person, especially with the nature of dreams, but if two people can have the same dream then maybe dreams can bend into reality. Who knows?

I got busy and couldn't direct attention to anything non-work because my boss was around, but we caught eyes on the way out and hers reminded me of another dream I had years back.

They were the exact same shade as my son's, the one who most certainly doesn't exist. Not yet anyway.

I hope she comes back. I have nothing to go on other than a shared dream, a hunch and a chance encounter.

So the wall is here. Its more than writer's block, more than loneliness and more than a whole host of other things that get in the way.

But maybe there's a way to climb it. And maybe I'll figure it out. And maybe a hunch, a shared dream and a chance encounter is enough for more than just this wall.

Woodchopping

Writing little bits did nothing, so I wrote a lot.

I just wrote freely, and pushed out over 1K words in about an hour (in segments of course). It was halfway between and introduction and a plan, but really addressed what I was/am thinking and where it might go.

One thing that struck me was that my thesis is still changing. I thought I'd found where it was going and that I could write to that, edit a thousand times and be done, but my Super has thrown a spanner in the works which is moving it ever elsewhere, not just in terms of this thesis but in terms of my overall research arc.

I used to think this kind of thing was a problem (in a big way), but it turns out it is only a mild inconvenience (regarding temporary block). So long as I write when I can and don't when I can't, it isn't too much hassle.

What becomes tough is when I don't write/read/think for more than about two days, or if I do for more than five at a stretch. There is the need for a balance in there and I just can't seem to hit the nail, or when I do the balance shifts. Maybe I can't find it, because there isn't actually a balance at all.

Whatever.

What I do know is that there is a difference between media archaeology, media genealogy and new materialism and that the train of thought I'm following is somewhere between the three.

On a side note, I kind of invented an idea regarding insistent, persistent and resistant media (maybe I'll chuck in consistent while I'm at it - I typed it and sometimes mistakes work out for the best), but that was a little more related to my pursuit for after Honours, like my "Rockstar Barista" thesis, or my "Connected v2.0" project.

Anyway, the main point is that I broke my drought. 

Goodnight.

Writer's Block

I was sick all of yesterday so I stayed in bed, watched anime and did nothing Uni related.

What happened when I woke up today? I was still sick, but I read a few things and started to write.

By that, I mean I sat at my computer and rewrote a single paragraph about 400 times.

Massive writer's block.

I know what I want to say, I just can't shrink it down into English.

I asked The Boss for tips and she said to just write in subheadings, picking concepts or big readings and writing about them. I tried that for a bit but I'd been too long in the blockage so I wrote out a revised plan of attack and started looking up potential supervisors for PhD (which is looking slimmer by the day - especially if I keep writing like this) roles.

I like the look of one guy, but he may or may not be marking my Honours paper so I'm not certain about the rules. On the plus side, if he did take me on at least he'd have an idea how I write.

I'm really hoping a good sleep and an early rise will assist in my block. Kind of have a few thousand words I need to rip out...

Mediating/Mediatising

And there's the rub.

Mediating - semantically and in general usage - is a great thing for me, but Mediatising is where it gets hairy, and where I may need to go.

Theatre is the birth of mediation as we know it (so says my argument) but in order to rejoin the debate I might have to expand on the mediatising of theatre.

It sounds like a cute reworking, but the difference is monstrous. Zemmels puts it quite neatly in one paper, but this again needs to be pulled out of the greater whole.

Kim was spot on when she wrote about a 12000 word paper consisting of a series of definitions to be used in context and nothing more. 

M & M? Oh dear...

Re: Mediating Theatre

It's so simple.

The first chapter is still Remediating, but focuses on where the concept emerges specifically in terms of interfaces. New Media is interface based, and more specific to participation and interaction in terms of users and producers.

The second chapter is still centered on the fourth-wall, but explains the New Media argument in theatrical terms, offering The Wall as an interface, but consults theatre as a participatory/interactive media with users (audience) and producers (makers). The possibility here is to highlight theatre as the media form current media in all of its forms aims to remediate.

The final chapter still offers case studies - the same ones (Gob Squad and Punchdrunk) - but becomes far more useful in terms of both proposed staging and actual effect. GS stage in the most contemporary way possible to both New Media and theatre, while PD almost remove New Media entirely, but offer the experience New Media crave, itself almost a direct throwback to pre-fourth-wall theatre.

And all of this combines into the single argument that in terms of B&G, theatre is absolutely hypermediate, both today and in antiquity.

It also creates a more engaging read, highlights the fact that my own reading is further abroad, and makes a springboard to launch my future research.

Re: Mediating.. Possibly Re: Mediatising?

Or maybe I'm looking at the next step early (Cyberformance, Digital Theatre).

Props to Jason for reading too much, Ed to actually asking me questions, Larissa for knowing everything but feeding me only as much as I can chew and Daniel for writing in the way I can only hope to.

Workout

Short one because I'm at work.

Did my usual physical training sessions the other way around this week - with great results overall.

Spent much more time reading this week too, and I'm formulating ideas to be written proper (still jotting down words as I read) next week.

Hoping to see it work out the same way my workouts have.

New Media Uprising

Read a lot more than usual today, which had a pretty big impact on the words I wrote.

I read about Marshall McLuhan (specifically Understanding Media) and how his theories directly effected B&G, to the point where their book title is a remediation/pun on McLuhan's text.

I really like puns so I was more satisfied with my choice of theorist.

One thing that really struck me was the lack of theatrical discourse in B&G when compared to McLuhan. The Daddy Mc gives theatre a lot of air time, comparing it to film, television and newspapers, as well as giving it a bit of a look as a standalone.

B&G give it pretty much zero, except to comment in passing - or refer to theatre in terms of place (cinema and home movie).

This led me onto the train of thought that theatre is not new media, but much new media evolved from theatre.

Theatre clearly remediates other media, employing practically anything in pursuit of a show, but also remains resistant to new media in a few important ways - ephemerality, immediacy and locality.

Theatre disappears. Theatre is local. Theatre is not immediate - at least in B&G's terms.

What becomes my two fold problem is applying an interface to theatre (the fourth-wall) by which it may be viewed in terms of new media, then refuting the claim to immediacy that this media appears to warrant.

This is going to be fun....

Strange Day(s)

Today was a funny one.

'Strange Days' is a film that opens Bolter and Grusin's discussion of Remediation and sums up my day nicely.

I did a few of the more mundane things - another application of my ethics, a session at the gym and a quick meet with a friend back from Germany.

Following this I pored over a PhD thesis my Supervisor sent me from one of my potential markers. Larissa sent it my way for the obvious reasons (he's likely to mark me so become familiar with his work and quote him positively), but also for slightly more opaque reasoning (he writes in a similar fashion to me, structurally and in terms of how he uses and addresses content).

I got out my new media pen and paper (stylus and iPad) and attacked his opening chapter. There is some stuff to mine in there, but also a few things to potentially rebut, or at least recycle in a different fashion.

With some reading done and an ever-shifting perspective in hand, I sat down to write. I ended up writing more of an introduction than anything else, which then turned into an amusing ramble about why people don't go to the theatre anymore, which according to my ramble was because it is common courtesy to turn off your mobile phone during a performance.

THERE IS SOMETHING IN THIS, but probably not for now. It felt very good to get it off my chest however and the combination of new direction, alternate reading (that cites many of my sources by happenstance) and a little venting has me in better spirits about not only this project, but the future of my research/career.

I also revisited an earlier paper and found that there is specific reference to the theorist (Denis Diderot) behind the construct (the fourth-wall) I'm investigating. A good find.

All told an oddly productive day, but I'm left feeling the same way I do when learning lines. I know they're in my head somewhere, but for the life of me I can't bring them out. Only writing (time) will tell.

Redundant

What a horrible word.

All the same, it looks as if much of my writing so far hits the mark.

Why? Not because it doesn't function, but because it doesn't fit.

I read a bit more (lot more) archaeology today and a bit more (little more) intermediality too. My carefully crafted usage of remediation/remediating pretty much align with the A/I strains.

At first I was a bit bummed, but the truth is this train situates and specifies exactly why my choice of theory matters.

Rather than spend/waste my time/words coming up with clever usages (flowery) of slippage-heavy terms, it makes my selection clearer and more relevant.

I'm basically trying to argue that immediacy is the wrong way to talk about theatre, so instead of being cheeky, I need to expose (as directly as possible) why this is so. I say expose, because explore is the wrong way.

Exploration is in the reading, but becomes redundant in the writing.

Get it? Hopefully you will when you read it.

Le Fin.

Archaeology

Met the Boss and she liked what I'd put down. Said I was in a good space too.

She gave me absolutely spot on feedback. I write like a funny guy - but not like an academic, not exactly.

We had a laugh because she said the same thing about herself. We both get caught up in cool metaphors or cheeky descriptions, which in turn obscures some of the content.

The thing becomes to strip it back and dry it out. Big time.

Rolling from there, the Boss sent me on a mission to dig up some Media Archaeology (there's a cheeky pun for you) and gave me a few names, all unpronounceable, but full of good things.

Erkki Huhtamo was the first hit, and aside from being a media archaeologist, he has a few things about screens, panoramas and the like that coincide theoretically and historically with my line.

I'm going to spend a bit of reading time this week and re-work my chapters, so I won't go too heavily into the theory until the reading gets done.

Ed, Jason and I met up today too and Ed pointed out a few flaws in my writing that Larissa hit without highlighting - but it was nice to have them made properly open.

The main points of contention were the dual uses of remediation/remediating (which can be remedied through a more thorough analysis of the archaeological material) and there was something else but I don't have it on hand so I'll have to get back to that later too.

For now I really need to dig into something else entirely - food, then sleep.

Compilations, Comics and Weaving

With a little rest under the belt, I spent some time putting together a draft (3K) for Larissa to read/destroy.

My original plan was to have a Chapter One down, but instead I had half of Chapters One and Two.

I was a little worried about it, but Jason said I should just roll with it anyway - writing is writing, and better than no writing after all.

So I chucked it together and it reads like a comic strip in progress. Some bits are sketches, others inked and a few places have a splash of colour.

Looking over it, I can see good and bad spots, connections arising, overworked ideas, things that helped me arrive at certain places now proving useless, but the places providing stimulation for new writing.

I don't know what Larissa will say but I'm glad it happened this way, because the threads are the important part. Some weave together to make rope, others unravel, but even as they unravel the material is there to recombine into new weaves.

There's a great thread I found that moves through remediation into remediating, and does so from stage to screen via liveness and immediacy. I haven't played with the fibres yet, but I can tell it'll be a rope by the end.

And it all happens in the writing - and the space in between. If I write until an idea falls out, I write the idea down and go off to think about it for a while. Then I jot down the thoughts and write them back into the writing, and the process repeats.

Weaving the ropes and making the comics aren't too different.

Rest Day

Like exercise, if you never rest you don't get a chance to heal.

I'd been burning several candles all along their lengths and yesterday, I was properly burnt out.

Sure I went to work, but Uni work was out of the question.

Note to self: make more time for rest.