Week 3 - Debate #2 Adjudicator

In the position of the adjudicator, I focused on the performance, presentation and structure of the case at hand, There is no inherent opposition between a live and mediated performance. Both teams maintained material from Phillip Auslander's 'Live Performance in a Mediatised Culture and introduced references throughout the debate, which allowed for a great understanding of the text.

The first speaker of the affirmative team stated their debate overview from the Auslander reading. That media has become the source of our "live" access to the world and that we depend on media to bring us to a pre-recorded "live experience" that constitutes as the "live". The debate was very close. The negative team provided strong, new information for the affirmative team as well as a lively, and entertaining delivery. I felt that they drew out a very strong case however I was not convinced that they were fighting for the 'opposition' of there being no connection of live performances opposed to mediatised performances. The first speaker of the negative team confused me early on. She gave information and quoted Auslander's reading about performance needing to be "live" in context to performance. She then drew out similarities between the "live" and the "mediatised" and that they work to the other's advantages however there was no direct statement or comment explaining their "inherent opposition". I felt that they continued to contrast the two and that you can have one without the other and vice versa. This, for me was not direct enough and believe it is why their case suffered. The case needed to be stronger.

Is there an inherent opposition between live and mediatised performance or not?

The affirmative team, I believe had the more difficult case in the sense that they had to "out perform" new information and structuralize their debate well enough to keep the audience and adjudicators asserted to the actual debate topic.

The second speaker of the affirmative team re-emphasized their understanding of their stance and rebutted that the "live" and the "mediated" do coexist together, which the negative team kindly pointed out for them. The second speaker also brought up the presence of the live audience makes the difference between the two cases and went on to solidify their statement by using the example by Auslander explaining that the live broadcast is not spatially co-present, which reasserts the idea that mediatised live broadcast purses certain quantities of a performance space but will never have the same spatial qualities. She went on to express the point from the reader that the media was a means to satisfy the mass culture, which didn't hold true to their case however the previous arguments cemented the comment.

The second speaker of the negative team did not create specific rebuttals to the affirmative teams case points, which was integral to the debate. She argued that there is a need for media and that there is a necessary appeal for it in a live performance, which was not necessarily a statement that was positive for her case. This is where I became uncertain with the stance that the negative team was taking. An interesting point that she did bring up was Peggy Phelan's ideology that mediatised recordings were altered copies and that rewatching a live performance was not being able to have a feel of a "live" atmosphere.

The third speaker of the affirmative team rebutted and concreted their arguments by reinstating that live performances and mediated performances are certainly separate entities however they are not in any inherent opposition. This statement strongly implies that the two performance projections don't necessarily fit well together.

The third speaker of the negative team could have rebutted this statement however chose to develop new concepts that didn't apply to our debate topic such as the early existence of performance and theatre spaces were made for the purpose of being "live". She also developed an argument surrounding the idea of mediatised dating such as Facebook and if this was all that occurred she could easily be in several relationships and the "live" aspects of dating would no longer be a hassle. I believe these statements could have been left out as they continued the idea that the live and the mediatised performance were two separate entities and not specifying the inherent opposition between the two performance types.

This is indeed why we did go with the affirmative teams case because in the end they stood by their case and did not back down from it, they defined it and strengthened it. The negative third speaker could have enhanced their debate and essentially won it had there been more of a push in the direction of the debate topic, the line was not held quite strong enough. I also believe that a lot of the negatives rebuttal and information was not relevant. The affirmative team themselves may not have delivered as well or as strong or charismatic for that fact. But they were convincing and stood by their case and that was what made them stronger.

Week 2 reading notes

(Was part of a group with 2 others but the email did not work)

Matthew Causey, "Tragedia Endogonidia" in Theatre and Performance in Digital Culture (Routledge, London and New York, 2008), pp167-179

• Tragedia Endogonidia (also called BR.04) – a term and play created by Romeo Castelluci, combining the notion of tragedy - associated with culture and awareness of our mortality - with the ‘endogonidial’ - that which is outside of our culture and an ongoing process (derived from microbiology, where living forms with gonads constantly reproduce).

• Romeo Castelluci addresses the issues of modern technology that is slowly embedding itself onto our human bodies to create these genetically modified forms, in a way, creating the superhuman or the perfect being. Example artists that also address this problem include Orlan and Stelarc.

• An example of this term is this surrealist minimalist play that consists of five scenes briefly illustrating a human’s life from birth to death. The space is enclosed and made with white marble lit with fluorescent lights.

• First scene – a black woman dressed in a cleaner’s uniform mops the floor quietly. Brings up connotations of the mess left behind for someone of inferior(?) status to clean up.

• Second scene – An infant crawls around the room. Also on the stage is a free-standing head and shoulders that blinks and speaks. The infant approaches this “machine”. What is interesting about this particular scene is the natural audience reaction and the lack of choreography (since the infant was very young and cried of distress in the first performance).

• Questions arise from this: if the infant is not aware of their surroundings, does the performance become void of its process as theatre? Or does the spectator’s reaction account for this?

• Third scene – a woman in a Victorian-styled dress with thinning hair holding her arm out behind with the other supporting it. The infant from the second scene appears. A projector turns on and it appears to be a loop of a bonfire. The woman points at the projector with a rod and takes steps forwards and backwards. She picks up the infant.

• Fourth scene – A man enters through the proscenium and onto the stage. However, he is dressed in a bikini and wanders about, looking confused. As he gets onto the stage, he approaches a chair that is supplied with garments. He puts these items of clothing on and slowly but not rapidly either becomes a uniformed policeman. To quote, “The movement from child-like naivete to uniformed authority, from playful clothing to spiritual garb, and ultimately to uniform of the law, communicates clearly. Upon the body we place signs of the self, God, and the law, and with each layer the subject’s life is further removed, further subject to control and party to the repression” (p172-173). The scene continues when two more uniformed men enter and begin to set up what looks like a crime scene. One of the men sits within a pool of blood and is immediately perceived as the victim. The victim becomes beaten by the other man until his face becomes swollen and bloody. He is then placed in a bag, quietly chanting Hail Mary and gasping for air. The woman from the third scene appears with a string in her mouth that is eventually pulled out revealing a bloody object. The woman from the first scene enters with a bag and reveals to the audience animal organs, laying them in front of the victim. A young boy in a top hat uses a fluorescent light to shine at the women and as such the entire scene goes into chaos.

• This scene evokes many thoughts and concepts such as the presence and absence of the sacrificial body and the close relations between violence and the Law. To quote again, “At this point in the performance, amidst the trauma, it is as if all connections of the body in pain were severed. The scene is a piling up of unprocessed traumas, and an abyss of psychic terrors is unearthed” (pg 177).

• Fifth and final scene – the old man from the beginning of the previous scene is lying on a hospital bed eating bread. Slowly, he gets under the sheets of his bed, sinking and disappearing completely. The young boy also from the previous scene appears and stands by the bed. It is a somewhat poignant and real scene, however despite the disappearance of the ‘hero’, the stage that provides the narrative still continues. The curtain eventually falls.

• Embeddedness is the next step forward from mediatised culture and performance. We are in ‘the era of spectacle’ where what we see formulates our desires to improve or build upon our notion of self. “The site of power has shifted from the exterior screens of simulation to the interior body or the material subject” (pg 179). However, Causey concludes with the belief that Embeddedness can allow manipulations for the worse threatening our mortality and our knowledge within our lives.

debate feedback

Some thoughts on what I thought was lacking from both debates

-There could be a further exploration of what constitutes 'performance' as opposed to everyday actions. I was a bit stuck on this idea especially regarding online communications such as youtube and skype.

Week 3, debate 1, third speaker (negative)

My first speaker spoke about subjective experiences and the idea of "disappearance". Being in a live arena, the context in which you experience an event cannot be recreated, watching a live DVD of a concert is not the same thing. You cannot recreate a "truly live" concert, being there is what creates your experience. The people around you and that which is experience first hand is completely different to watching it on TV. Yes, while there are amplifiers and screens mediating the event, it is how you control what you see and feel that makes the difference.

My second speaker argues that a performance cannot be recreated, that the objects and performance can only exist through a medium and once it is mediated, it can no longer be considered live. The nature of a live performance is through its unpredictability and spontaneity. I will further argue upon this point and round up the negative team’s case.

The concept of the live was articulated in relation to technological change. Recording technology brought the live into being, but only under guidelines that allowed a clear distinction between the existing mode of performance and the new one. However, the development of broadcast technology has obscured that distinction, and therefore challenged the formerly complementary relationship between live and mediated types of performance.

The word "live" was used as part of a vocabulary designed to contain this debate by describing it and reinstating the former distinction even if it could no longer be sustained experientially. As a consequence of the circumstances under which this vocabulary was instated, the distinction between the live and the recorded was reconceived as one of binary opposition rather than complimentarily.

These ways of conceptualising the live and the distinction between the live and recorded or mediatised originated in the era of analogue technologies and persist to the present day; they form the basis of our current assumptions about liveness. But I will argue here that digital technologies have reshaped our understanding of “liveness”.

Live events allow viewers to pay attention to different things but recorded events give consumers the power to consume as they see fit. We don't just need to ask how attention is controlled -- through live OR recorded events -- but how transparent the means are by which attention is controlled. The more common the mechanisms of representation, the more opportunity there is for manipulation but, also, the more power the individuals may have to critique meaning that comes from familiarity with representation.

I see “awareness” as the defining factor between live and mediated performances. I agree with Auslander when he notes Benjamin’s emphasis on the idea that “human sense perception… is determined not only by nature but by historical circumstances as well”. And while it may be true that it has reshaped our view on what is considered the “sensory norm”, it has also made us aware of the extension of our senses. I would extend upon these lines of argument and argue that rather than an intrinsic opposition between the live and the mediated, that the mediated extends upon the live.

We, the negative team argue that mediated events force audiences (you) to become cyborgs, defined as an extension of yourself through technologies. Cyborgs are a hybrid human and technology, live and mediated, in this case I would use the example of being at a live music concert.

The concert is live, you are in the stadium. The screens and speakers are all around you, Auslander states that this is therefore a mediated event: “Live performance now often incorporates mediatisation such that the live event itself is a product of media technologies. This has been the case to some degree for a long time, of course: as soon as electric amplification is used, one might say that an event is mediatised.” (Auslander, 24). However, I would argue that this is, instead, an extension of human ears and eyes. The cameras act as another set of human eyes, focusing on that which you, the audience member, cannot. The amplifiers act as a hearing aid, merely amplifying that which you can already hear.

Week Three Debate: Chairpersons Report

“There is no inherent opposition between live and mediated performance”


Given this heavily contested topic to debate, the affirmative and negative teams immediately began researching their position on the subject matter. Lengthy email conversation flowed within and between both groups, and myself, with researched findings, ideas on points of attack and the formation of succinct arguments. Deconstruction of the reading was evident from both parties, as they effectively addressed the key concepts and concerns of both Auslander and Phelan. The organization within the teams was efficient and proved a successful and enlightening debate.

The affirmative team opened the debate with a strong argument; Liz effectively introduced her team’s standpoint and clearly laid out their plan of attack. The points introduced succinct and enthusiastically addressed the main concepts raised by Auslander. Notions of audience- desensitisation, intimacy, expectation and an overall emphasis on the role of television in shifting the way in which we (viewers, consumers, audience, spectators) conceive of what the ‘live’ constitutes and the way in which broadcasting has altered the perceptions of immediacy and ontological processes.

First speaker for the negative, Alex, hit back, refuting the notion that broadcast does in fact have a strong ontological base and that the disappearance of VHS (a further example raised by Liz) paved the way for new forms of recording and playback, such as DVD, Youtube, TiVo etc. And that the process of viewing material through these mediums can not be considered a truly live performance- thus causing it to be in opposition to mediatised performance. Alex then invoked Peggy Phelan, reiterating her views on the disappearance of live performance through the intervention of mediated forces. That human subjectivity, memory and personal experience can only truthfully be had during the experience of the moment, being in the presence of the actual performer- it can only be a unique, personal encounter once- and once it has been recorded it becomes something else, a different visual/audio experience.

The affirmative quickly contested the notion that ‘live’ only exists in an embodied experience, as the idea of what ‘live’ means has been altered, and it can no longer simply be defined by a physical presence. Belle continued to argue that the live and mediated are mutually dependent, that there is an inherent liveness and sense of co-presence in all performances, especially in the heavily mediated virtual, liveness is no longer considered physiotemporal as again, the notion of what a performance is has altered, reinforcing the teams position that there is no opposition between live and mediated performance, that they are mutually dependant.

Brent began by rebutting the idea of virtual ‘liveness’ as an example of a live performance, as the performing entities are solely existing/communicating through a medium- thus by being mediated it is no longer considered ‘live’. He continued by adding that the unpredictable nature of live performance can not be captured or compared to that of recorded footage- that the mediated version is remediated, becoming something entirely new, finally reinforcing the notion that live and mediated performances are in opposition.

XiXi, the 3rd and final speaker for the affirmative, began by counter arguing Brent’s example of the ‘liveness’ in a concert (Beyonce), adding that audiences expect some level of mediation, either through sound, microphone usage, speakers, large screens, emphasising the mutually dependant nature of live and mediated performance. She then effectively wrapped up her team’s position, clearly reiterating the notion that modern society is desensitised and audience expectation itself has been changed and remediated, finally reinforcing the mutual dependency of live and mediated performance.

Finally, Jan, the 3rd speaker for the negative, opened with emphasising that live and mediated performance does exist separately, and that, yes, mediation is n extension of the live, however they are not always mutually dependent. Concluding with the notion that live performance can not be mediated, as it defeats the purpose of the ‘live’, thus inturn creating something new, a remediated experience – neither better or worse, just different.


As the adjudicators mulled over their decisions, I engaged the class in brief discussion on their views on the subject matter and whom they believed should be the winning team. Surprisingly it was quite an even spread of hands for both teams, and after considering why certain individuals where swayed either way, the general consensus was that those who agreed with the affirmative already shared that view because of their prior knowledge and preformed opinion of the Auslander reading, however those who sided with the negative, did so because the arguments came with a fresh perspective including examples that they themselves had not conceived of before.

This proved to be evident within the adjudicators result as they awarded the negative team the winners, reasoning that the argument they presented was the most original and creatively thought of. They appreciated the innovative examples and interesting standpoint, enlightening them and the audience with notions not previously thought of or researched from Auslander.

Overall I would say the debate was extremely successful and an interesting way to flesh out the readings, the concepts and the key notions between the two opposing views.

- Jessica Falkholt

Week 3 Debate 1: Adjudicators Report

Topic: There is no inherent opposition between live and mediatised performance

Notes before the debate:
• The meaning/s of liveness
- These meaning have blurred and changed over time to no longer represent the first meaning of original and new experiences. "You have to be there to experience it"
- Due to the changed meaning of "live", the lines have blurred so much that live and recorded have now formed the meaning of "live replay".
• Non-matrixed performance and approaches to performance
- There is a difference between live and mediated due to actions that cannot be understood without mediated forms - new technologies
• Immediacy and Intimacy
- Immediacy - direct involvement with someone and the sense of urgency. Austlander's reading includes the example of live performance in the theatre - filming television with a live audience
- Intimacy - viewer and the screen: making a personal connection - being involved in a drama on a TV show and getting to know the characters, OR in a theatre performance, the development of a character through dance moves
• The acceptance of technologies that change the nature of sport, video games (wii), music and television
- Walter Benjamin's argument of destroying the aura of the original - by filming a work, it is no longer "original". Also, by replaying something that was filmed/captured when it was "live", it is no longer original and the only copy
- The wii also, captures real time movements but transforms them to an image you can see on a screen - Austlander's example is a music concert that uses television monitors to remediate an experience
• The relationship between viewer and performer
- Between the television and live events: how TV is structured from theatre and performance and how theatre and performance was then structured and mediated by TV later on
• A lot of works include media - performance wise - performances now include projections onto a dancer's body and or wall
• Emergent technologies
- Present verses past in different media forms
- According to Austlander: TV vs. Movie's - TV is the present, movies represent the past
• How the "live" structures events and how the meaning of live has changed dramatically over the years
• Key people in the reading are Margaret Morse, Walter Benjamin, Michael Kirby and Peggy Phelan

Marking Scheme:
- Case line and follow through
- Structure
- Main points

Key points on debate:
Affirmative team
• Modern society has become desensitized – through advent modern media forms
• Strong introduction with the opening point of desensitized
• Mutually dependant – social and internet liveness – audience affection
- Social networking
• Closeness and proximity
• The live and historical
• 2nd speaker: differences lie within cultural economy
• 3rd speaker: Mediated being an extension means there is no difference
- Expect the mediated performance
• Perceptions of the world – constructed by live and television

Negative team
• Subjectivity – Peggy Phelan
• Remediation and intimacy of a live audience
• Opportunity to make it our own – truly live and mediated
• Enables visual choice
• Can’t go back and view a live performance – can’t make it our own
• Temporal space – virtual physical space still exists
• Social liveness is a form of live performance eg. Skype
• Mediation further extends upon the live
• Different courses for acting and tv and film
• Immediacy and intimacy
• 2nd speaker: skype acts as an extension of the person
- Don’t need a camera to watch
• Extension is mediated of the live
• Encapsulate the experience – extend what you see and hear

It was good to see that the affirmative team related their argument closely to the reading, by stating that the differences lie within the cultural economy. However, instead of staying down this path of the cultural economy, their argument was weakened by not explaining how. Another strong argument that they brought up was that the live and mediatised have become desensitized and mutually dependant upon each other. This strengthened their case as they closely related to Austlander’s argument of the nature of technology.

The negative team we felt presented a clearer case as they had a strong team line that “the mediated is an extension upon the live”. Even though this relates closely to Austlander’s reading, how the technology evolves with the technology, they argued well that it is merely an extension upon the live, therefore removing the added options of technology to enhance the visual appearance. What reinforced their argument was their examples of a live concert and skype, presenting technology still has a physical presence, but allows you (the audience) to encapsulate the experience by extending what you can already see and hear. As they backed up their argument with examples, this is what allowed us to come to the conclusion that the negative team should win.

I felt that what both teams did not argue enough on the perspective that the technology evolved due to audience participation, and Walter Benjamin’s argument of destroying the ‘aura’ of the original. I agree that the technology is mutually dependant, but it is also a remediation.

Affirmative – 2nd Speaker –Group 2#. Jessica Davis

Rebuttal: In today’s society Mediation can be witnessed in everyday live performances reinforcing their coexistence. E.g. A cricket game will wait for the decision of an electronic umpire or an audience listening to a rock group through amplifiers.

One example of a Type of Liveness is, “Live Broadcasts”, which as Auslander stated, is where “...performers and audience are temporally co-present in that the audience witnesses the performance as it happens, but they are not spatially co-present”, Pp60. This is a transformation of the original definition of “Live” as Space has become variable highlighting the integration of Mediation into Liveness.

This can also be observed in reference to “Live Recordings”, which Auslander described as an Oxymoron due to the fact that the original definition of “live” was for the performer and audience to be co-present, but with live recording this is contradicted as “Time” and “Space” become variable. For example, you can now listen to a live recording of Pink Floyd from 1966 in, present day, from the comfort and privacy of your room. This creates an intimacy between audience and performer that a studio album can’t produce, but without the hassle or cost of leaving your Private Space to go see a crowded live performance in a Public Space. “Types of Liveness” have evolved becoming vast due to technological developments, resulting in the definition of “live” to become more varied and reliant on mediation.

We as media users don't feel the need to distinguish types of “Liveness” as they have become so interdependent. However, by identifying these types we can examine the complementing relationship of “Liveness” and “mediation” to a greater extent. “Online Liveness” and “Social Liveness” are two, more complex examples of modern forms of ‘”liveness”. They are the result of the introduction of the internet, which was suggested in the reading, like other modern technologies to attempt to remediate the T.V. “Liveness”, in regards to the internet, refers to the interaction between the user and the machine resulting in what Auslander phrases “...a subjective encounter with a persona” and consequently a “...feeling of liveness and sense of the machines agency..” Pp13. This active experience of “Online Liveness” can be observed with sites like Youtube, Facebook and Skype, where we interact allowing the immediacy and intimacy of the internet and the response we receive to feel live to us. Morse (1998) describes the feeling of liveness to be mainly a result of the “feedback loop”, this is when “..the website responds to our input”, Pp62. As a result of these varied types of “Liveness” the audience's perception of liveness is being changed by the convergence of live and mediatised performances consequently causing a change in media tastes.

Walter Benjamin argues that our perception is shaped by Mediatisation due to the fact that mediated content has become naturalised. And I quote: ‘Eyes and ears have been conditioned by mediatisation’, Pp34. The mediated performance being transformed by the audience to be natural is a result of the audience desire intimacy with the artist; so to satisfy the mass culture Live and Mediated performances must go hand in hand.

Everything is becoming less fixed, time, space, sound, vision, liveness and mediation.

Week 3 Debate 1 Adjuticator's Report

A debate ultimately comes down to who is more convincing. However, when attempting to convince an informed audience to believe one side of a deeply theoretical topic, this task becomes that much more difficult - Both teams will be working against the leanings of the theorists and the subjectivity the audience has already developed.

As a result, adjudication had to be based on what they brought to the debate, and who developed and supported their chosen case line the best. Knowing some of what the teams had prepared had placed us in a unique position, but what Rachel and I decided was to use the theoretical framework as background, and award the debate based on who better engaged with it.

What the two teams actually presented was one case founded very strongly in Auslander’s material pitted against a case that attempted to build an argument around the theory underpinning it.

The Affirmative case was based around the codependency that now exists between the live and the mediatized. While all team members spoke very well and presented their material, what their case lacked was a central stated thesis, which impeded their ability to argue their side of the topic.

On the other hand, the Negative’s stated case line was that by examining what was lost in the cultural space in live/mediatized performance, we could find the inherent opposition. What I felt gave the Negative added weight was the fact that this was a line of reasoning overtly shared by all three Negative speakers and by introducing their own burden of proof, they could present a conclusive case.

Because refutation was lacking on both sides, the largest point of contention between the two teams, and the issue that proved most relevant in our deliberation, was whether or not extending the live with the mediated showed an inherent opposition between the two.

In order to resolve this, we worked from the accepted definition posed by the first Affirmative speaker, Auslander’s notion that the opposition, if inherent, will be found on the level of “cultural economy”.

While the argument seems to support the Affirmative case, the Negative typified this extension as a shift in the balance of power in the sensory expectations of an audience. Therefore, a mediatized extension competes with the preconceived notions of the live, and an opposition must exist.

This served to both fulfill the Negative’s burden of proof and work against the Affirmative’s codependency standpoint.

It is a shame that both teams missed a few opportunities, both on the Affirmative’s part, where they could have explored a wider range of examples of codependency and a more explicit core argument, and the Negative, who would have been much stronger with more succinct closing statements across the board and a more directed attack on the Affirmative’s case.

Again though, both teams should be commended for their engagement with the material, and a very well fought debate.

#2 Debate- 2nd Speaker for Negative team

Rebuttal:

- Points made about how there is always a presence of Media within live concerts. Yet, the inherent difference is you still get a performance that's 'in the now', compared to a CD recording.

- Live sports are not reliant on the media, the media aids the game for the audience (as they hear the results and see them on an electrical board. However, it is the rules themselves and the live players that the sport relies on to be played.

My new points and arguments:

As our first speaker explored, there is a definate correlation between mediated and live performances. In his article, Auslander states that mediated recordings help provide a kind of intimate access to live events, that being in close proximity might not. Atalli, a source within Auslanders article, explores early sound recordings to acknowledge the influence that media has on live performances. Therefore media within performance is crucial for its preservation, as well as broadening its access. Although they can work together, in terms of access and preservation, i shall explore their differences by examining the altered experiences of the audience and the changes to the performance itself through being both live and mediated means.

As Peggy Phelan says, once we watch the live performance again, through its recordings, we are merely watching an altered copy of it. Where the performance is no longer considered to be ‘in the now’. She argues that once a live performance is recorded or documented, it becomes something other than a performance. The initial live performance is no longer in a temporal situation and we are not getting the feel of the created space and intended atmosphere. Unlike Peggy, we believe forms of media can still capture elements of a live performance. Yet, live performances are indeed altered when recorded, thus there is an inherent difference between the two.

To focus on media as a recording of the live, i shall explore what Auslander says about live performance. The qualities more relevant to live performances are spontinaity, community, presence and feedback between performance and audience. As well as these characteristics, I believe that the main differences between mediatised performances and those live, are created by the sensorial changes and approaches one has to a performance. Our senses can be altered and provoked by an immediate presence, compared to a distanced viewing.

A prime example of the senses provoked through live performance, compared with recordings of them, is Rani Moorthy’s ‘Curry Tales’. This one woman theatre performance, finds Rani Moorthy discussing with the audience stories, from larger than life characters. She laughs, cries, argues and chats about various life tales, while cooking a number of curry dishes live onstage. Once she has made each dish, she then plates it up for the physical audience to taste. Wether Rani has overly prepared her dialogue and blocking does not take away the fact that there is still a huge element of spontaneity caused by the presence of cooking on stage.

The emotions and stories she portrays as the characters can be captured and preserved by types of recording media, focusing on expression, dialogue and sometimes movement. However, only the temporal audience can have further senses provoked, such as taste and smell. The cooking helps create a homely atmosphere that enhances the characters stories of home life and heritage. The smell of each curry floods the theatre and the warmth and love put into each dish is tasted by individual audience members, creating a very unique live experience.

Therefore we can see that a recording of this live show, and many other live performances, changes the intentions and experiences for viewers. Stronger senses can be provoked through a physical presence, such as taste and smell. And the live presence of an audience can have great effects on the show itself, such as the laughter of the audience can create a longer pause.In return, the performance can have not just an emotional effect on the live audience, but a physical one... such as eating the food. I have explored this specific example of a live theatre performance, as i believe it reinforces our teams focus. That live is the co-presence of spectator and performance, and that greatly contrasts to the experiences created by merely viewing a mediated copy of that live show later on.

READING TASK: DANIELLE BARSI, KIRSTEN EVANS, EBONY TURSKI, KATIE WILLIAMS, JAIMELEE MARASIGAN

READING 1.

- The work of The Builders Association explores two different sides of theatre. Attractions tradition and the more critical Piscatorian tradition.

- They seem to be experimental through the employment of video in a dramatic, didactic and choric way.

- In their later work they draw from and explore real life stories, rather than fictional. Eg. Jet Lag.

- They also blend contemporary ideas with the classic. For example in Master Builder (1994) they used a shortened version of a text yet performed it in an industrial ware house in New York.

- The use of technology encouraged the audience to experience sensorial overload rather than engage critically in the text. e.g Alladeen.

- Throughout the use of technology they distorted time and space to create a virtual world. e.g Jetlag.

- They attempted to explore the mechanics of science in a contemporary society.

READING 2.

- Epistemology is "a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge" (Dictionary.com) : a word we had not experienced before.

- Embedded technology has pushed virtual technology aside?

- We found it difficult to decipher the second reading, any comments would be appreciated.

week 3, 2nd debate, Affirmative team 3rd speaker

Rebuttal points: As the negative team argued that live and mediated performance are separate entities, we pointed out that this was an invalid argument as the topic asks wether the two forms oppose, not whether they are different. Also the negative team emphasised the definition of live performance as one of being in the same space and time and audience responses and interactivity. We countered this by arguing that most performances are mediated and a performance has to only lack in one of these characteristics to be still defined live in the new definition of live performance based on mass culture.

Speech summary: Over time mediatised performances have been in representation of the live when live was what the mass culture expected and appreciated. Then the live took the form of the mediated performances due to the mass culture associating mediated performances with natural and real. As Auslander Points out in reference to Walter Benjamin in pp34, ‘Eyes and ears have been conditioned by mediatisation’.

Our second speaker then goes on to clarify the evolution of the term, live performance, due to the integration of mediatisation into the many examples of current live performances. This evolved version of life performance has limitation on either one or more of the fundamental ontological factors of live performance. Such as the limitation on intimacy in the example provided by our second speaker of live broadcasts due to not being able to be spatially co-present where the broadcast is happening. Live recordings was another example outlined, of the integrated forms of live and mediated performance without the factor of intimacy or immediacy however the quality of the content is associated with live as it is not filtered and altered as a purely remediated performance would be. Therefore again we emphasise the interdependence of mediated and live performances.

Our second speaker also talks about online liveness as a meshed example of live and mediated. The internet has allowed for the availability of content more immediately especially news and such. However with performances, it has allowed for the access of such performance which is not actually possible without the mediation and remediation of it through the internet due to the vastness of the spaces between the location of the performance and the location of the viewer.

Most important of all is the audience’s expectation of a performance. As our second speaker has suggested, the mass culture prefers the mediated quality in a live performance as they are accustomed to consuming the mediated performance and viewing it as real and natural. In a culture that expects and integration of the live and mediated performance, it is safe to say that these two forms definitely do not oppose each other but inevitably work together thus becoming a one form of performance.

Week 3 2nd Debate Affirmative Team First Speaker

We define the topic as live and mediatised performances are mutually dependent. We the affirmative team believe that this statement is true.

According to Auslander, “the default definition of live performance is that it is the kind of performance in which the performers and the audience are both physically and temporally co-present to one another” (p.60, 89). But the inventions of radio, television, telephone and computer give rise to different perceptions of liveness. Performances transmitted or recorded through media technologies like television, films and DVDs are thus mediatised performances.

Today as first speaker I will be talking to you about the mutual remediation of live and mediatised performances to demonstrate that they are actually interdependent.

Our second speaker will rebut and talk about the changing concept of liveness in historical context and in contemporary media scope. She will further demonstrate that today’s live performance is actually highly mediatised.

Our third speaker will rebut and sum up our team case.

Media technology is always evolving. Each time the emergence of one major media technology brings about huge impact on the existing ones. But this is not to say that new ones oppose old ones. They are both changing, remediating and being remediated by each other.

In the early stage, both film and television were aiming to be theatrical, according to Brewster and Jacobs. The development of cinematic staging and editing in the 1910s was the attempt to model the well-established theatre practice, rather than laying the basis for a specifically cinematic approach to narration (Brewster and Jacobs p.15). Also, the narrative structures and visual devices of cinema, including the close-up and the fade-in/fade-out, and parallel editing, all came from the theatre (p.14).

Television’s essential characteristics came from live performance. It was originally proposed as the live theatre in the home. Its ability to broadcast events while they happen is identical to the experience of live performance. The intimacy and immediacy of television were borrowed from theatre. The multiple-camera setup in a television studio was also to recreate the perceptual continuity of the theatre. P. 19

While the mediatised derive from the live, the live is incorporating the mediatised.

For example, The use of big screens is more and more common in big concerts and sport events. In such events, although physically and temporally the performer and the audience are co-present to one another, but due to geographical limitation, not all audiences can feel the intimacy of the events, so the mediatised big screens are there to facilitate the liveness of the live performance, bringing bigger and closer looks of the events.

At the same time, the audience’s media consumption habit is also changing. People no longer feel the need to distinguish live and mediatised performances. Also according to Auslander, contemporary live performance spectators are “modelling their responses to the live event on those expected of them by television” (p. 25). “Theatre audiences today respond spontaneously to the same sorts of cues that are often used in a television studio because the studio audience has become the culturally engrained model for what get applause and how audiences behave (p.26).

In conclusion, as Auslander points out, “whereas mediatised performance derives its authority from its reference to the live or the real, the live now derives its authority from its reference to the mediatised” (p. 39, 28). Today’s media-scope is becoming more and more convergent and thus open to various types of performances. Live and mediatised performances are getting more and more interdependent. So the statement that There is no inherent opposition between live and mediatised performance is true.

#3rd speaker affirmative team (first debate) Xixi

debate summary

modern society has become desensitised to the differences between live and mediated performance through the advent of modern media forms and the way they have shaped our identities as modern audiences.

There has been a shift in audience expectations and responses from the beginnings of live performance to the modern society we live in now, modern audiences have been conditioned by mediatised performance. We are not only mediatizing the 'live' but 'live' is incorporating mediatisation. This can be exemplified in Auslander's reading where Television has raised the bar for the levels of intimacy and immediacy expected by audiences. Our perception of the world and what “live” equates to have been constructed by film and television. The purely live performance is rare. Live performance itself has developed since the replication of the discourse of mediatisation, while new technologies remediate older ones, as film and television both remediated theatre, live performances now endeavours to replicated television, video, and film.

However, in Auslander's reading, it does not touch upon the new technologies we have today - internet, social networks, and DJ and VJ. With the internet, it opens a different sense of 'liveness' and 'realism' to the audiences. This sense of 'liveness' and virtual 'realism' is competely dependent of mediatisation where the medium is the computer and the computer screen - it is a window that extends the audience to another realm of 'liveness'. For example, 'youtube' acts as a platform where people are able to publish or 'go live' online to reach out to audience through the mediatsation of interent and the computer. Here, the notion of 'liveness' has shifted from time. In the traditional context, Auslander comments on 'liveness' been in an environment of the theatrical audiences sitting in front of a prescenium; however, in this day and age, our versions of 'liveness' have become more than just the one. With us modern cyborgs we have culturally and socially conditioned to mediatisation. With the simulation of screens, audiences now can experience 'liveness' in various different ways. The other example is VJ, this is a type of 'liveness' that is dependent on the interpretation of the VJ and then the VJ mixes images on the screen in turn affecting the audience and the atmosphere of the 'live'. Both of these kidns of 'liveness' is a part of our modern social norm, we as audienes expect mediatisations within the live experiences. In our mediatised culture, there is no real distinction between the mediatised and the live.

Debate #1: 1st speaker negative summary

Hey guys, here is what I spoke about in my speech...

I started out by rebutting two points from the affirmative team's argument. Unfortunately I lost the palm cards I was referring to, and my teammates were unable to remember what I spoke about either. From my memory, I think it was about the affirmative team's point regarding our attitudes towards mediated performance and the media in general. It is seen as a live performance that we can view in our own homes, that we trust and is an integral part of our everyday life and being able to replace live performance. I brought up the issue that (perhaps as a result of our heavily mediatised culture), most audiences probably wouldn't take this attitude towards the media anymore, of trust and certainty. In our current society, the more popular attitude to take towards anything mediatised it one of critical thinking. I think I also spoke about media networks such as TiVo and YouTube because they contribute to a mediated society of repetition and mass production, where it is more like we are being told how to feel about a performance, rather than taking certain memories away from the performance, that can very rarely be revisited, and putting our own impressions and interpretations onto it. I can't recall which affirmative point this was in response to though....

Peggy Phelan

Unmediated live performance allows for the subjective experience of memory after the disappearance of the performance, whereas most mediated performance allows us to watch again. In a sense, we learn the experience rather than absorb it and interpret it. In “the ontology of performance”, Peggy Phelan makes a poignant statement about the nature of live performance, that its "only life is in the present. It cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance". Phelan goes on to define this fundamental concept of “liveness” as “writing towards disappearance” as opposed to preservation. She believes that the experience of subjectivity comes from the after-effect of disappearance – since we cannot go back and revisit the live performance, all we have are our memories of it and our own personal meanings and associations that combine with the memory to form our own personal and unique experience that nobody else can touch. In a sense, with truly live and non-mediated performance, we have the opportunity to make it our own. This, Phelan believes, is the essence of subjectivity and art. Whilst there are some performance works which can be interchangeably mediated and non-mediated due to the fact that they we written that way, Phelan calls for written performance works that are “answerable to the consequences of disappearance", or “performative”, as she puts it.

Different visual experience of watching live vs. mediated performances

In his book, Auslander refers to the TV production textbook written by Bretz. It is quoted as saying that “the TV medium is the medium of camera and as such has departed almost as far from the live theatre as has the medium of film.” This follows a discussion of the bringing of cameras onto the stage for different shots and angles that a regular audience member would not be able to obtain. So here, a professional in the field of television admits to the fact that the visual experiences of watching a live theatre production and a mediated one have become totally different.

As well as this, we can choose where to look in a live performance. This is a lot more restricted in mediated performance as the frames are smaller than our actual frame of vision, and the editor ultimately decides what we look at. Although Auslander counters this by saying that the director of the live performance has control over what we pay attention to by using visual directing techniques, the audience still has the CHOICE: the choice whether to look at the old man with all the lines at the front of the stage, or the attractive supporting actor in the back corner! We even have the choice to look at members of the audience around us and see how they are reacting to the show. This creates an inherent opposition between live and mediated performance: one enables visual choice whilst viewing and the other does not.

Week 5 Debating roles - Updated

Adjudicator – Danielle Barsi
Adjudicator - James Thomas
Adjudicator - Ebony Turski
Advisor - Fiona Hallam
1st Affirmative speaker – Kirsten Evans
2nd Affirmative speaker - Paraskevi Moutopoulos
3rd Affirmative speaker - Krishna
1st Negative Speaker - Katie Williams
2nd Negative Speaker - Jennifer Armas
3rd Negative Speaker – Gavin Broll
Chair - Carmen Holmes

NEW ROLES (sorry for before)

Adjudicator – Danielle Barsi
Adjudicator - James Thomas
Adjudicator - Ebony Turski
1st Affirmative speaker – Kirsten Evans
2nd Affirmative speaker - Paraskevi Moutopoulos
3rd Affirmative speaker - Fiona Hallam
1st Negative Speaker - Katie Williams
2nd Negative Speaker - Jennifer Armas
3rd Negative Speaker – Gavin Broll
Chair - Carmen Holmes

Trouble getting Week 4 Reading

I'm trying to get the week 4 reading from http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theatre_journal/v051/51.4birringer.html but you need a login and password, and didn't really want to sign up to get one reading. Is there some other way we can download it?

Week Two lecture Notes (Plus bonus extras)

View week two materials here: Liveness-and-Multimedia-Performance