Next Wednesday 31 March

Dear people,

To avoid any confusion, I advise that the class will be going ahead as scheduled. Although this is a strike day I don't want to lose the week. This is a difficult decision as I support the union but I also support your progress in this class so we are going ahead as planned.

best

ed

Week Four reading summary

When exploring media surrounding/within dance performances, i found Johannes Birringer's article fascinating and useful. The question raised about whether or not, once media was involved in a live performance, it would present a new kind of image art is raised and explored. Due to the use of artificial intelligence, within 22. It also raises the question is it scientifically focused or artistically. The part of the article which most interested me, was that for both the human performers and the artificial one, we (as an audience) cannot help but give everyone a narrative dimension. Although the performance incorporates a triangular machine that just wants to get from one side of the stage to the next, using the flow and line of the dancers, we cannot help giving it human emotions. Whether it is merely a machine, its stumbles and fall backs (when trying to reach the other side), forces us to view its goal and give it a desire. Something then, which is purely mechanical, becomes as important and as affective on our emotions as the human dancers do on stage.

Debate Feedback

Of the two debates performed in week three I found the second to be more engaging due to the greater depth of subject matter being presented and argued by all the speakers. The speakers on both teams showed great preparation, although there did appear to be some confusion over exactly what was being debated. I disagree with the adjudicators decision and feel that the negative team should have won because they delivered a more concise and articulate argument. I also feel that both debates should have given more time to establish exactly what a performance is before launching their arguments.

Week 2 Reading notes

(Jessica Keogh and James Thomas)

Lehman, Hans-Thies ‘Postmodern and Postdramatic’ and ‘Media’ in Postdramatic Theatre trans. By Karen Jurs-Mundy (Routledge, London and New York, 2006), pp167-174

 

• Lehman’s reading looks at postmodern and postdramatic theatre in the 1970’s and 1990’s.

• Postmodern theatre can be sorted in many ways: the theatre of deconstruction, multimedia theatre, restoratively traditional theatre, theatre of gesture and movements.

• Some of the key words that have come up in the international postmodernism discussion are: ambiguity; celebrating art as fiction; celebrating theatre as process; discontinuity; heterogeneity; non textuality; pluralism; multiple codes; subversion; al sites; perversion; performer as theme and protagonist; deformation; text as basic material only; deconstruction; considering text to be authoritarian and archaic; performance as a third term between a drama and theatre; anti-mimetic; resisting interpretation.

• Postmodern theatre is without discourse but instead dominated by mediation, gestuality, rhythm and tone. It knows not only the ‘empty’ space but also the overcrowded space. It can indeed be ‘nihilistic’.

• Many traits of theatre practice that are called postmodern - from the seeming to the real randomness of means and quoted forms, to the unabashed use and combination of heterogeneous styles, from a ‘theatre of images’ to mixed media, multi media and performance – by no means demonstrate a renunciation of the traditions of dramatic form.

• Theatre does not simulate but obviously remains a concrete reality of the place, the time, the people who produce signs of the theatre- and these are always signs of signs. What is a real cause of concern for the theatre, however, is the emerging transition to an interaction of distant partners by means of technology. There is a possibility that such an increasingly perfected interaction at the end compete with the domain of the theatrical live arts whose main principal is participation.

• We can roughly distinguish between different modes of media use in the theatre. Either media are occasionally used without the use fundamentally defining the theatrical conception (mere media employment); or the serve as a source of inspiration for the theatre, its aesthetic or form without the media technology playing a major role in the media productions themselves; or they are constitutive for certain forms of theatre. Also theatre and media art can meet in the form of video instillation.

• The work of the Wooster group serves as an example of the use of media as constitutive for certain forms of theatre. As a means of problemizing self-reflection, the electronic images in their ‘post-epic’ theatre refer directly to the everyday reality and/or the theatre process of the players. At most, they quote visual material.

• One question media theatre poses for the spectator is this: why is it the image that fascinates us more? What constitutes the magic attraction that seduces the gaze to follow the image when given a choice between devouring something real or something imaginary? One possible answer is that the image is removed from real life, there is something liberating about the appearance of the image, which gives pleasure to the gaze. The gaze liberates desire from the bothersome ‘other circumstance’ of real, really producing bodies and transports it to a dream vision.

• The body in theatre is a signifier (not the object) of desire. The electronic image, by contrast, is pure foreground. It evokes a fulfilled, superficially fulfilled kind of seeing. Since no aim or desire enters consciousness as the background of the image, there can be no lack. The electronic image lacks lack, and is consequently leading only to – the next image, in which again nothing ‘disturbs’ or prevents us from enjoying the plenitude of the image.

 

Giesekam, Greg ‘Live Film on Stage: The Builder’s Association’ in Staging the Screen (Palgrave, Hampshire and New York, 2007), pp142-175

 

• This reading looks at the builders association, which was established in 1993 by Marianne Weems, Jeff Webster, Jennifer Tipton and numerous others. The builders association is known for their hypermediatic productions and have been seen as a forerunner of experimental theatre.

• The work of the builders association straddles both the theatre of attraction tradition and the more critical piscatorian tradition.

• They employing video didactically, and dramatically, and in a choric way, as well as exploiting opportunities provided by live relay, computer animation and editing to work innovately at the interface between live and mediated performers.

• The company’s handling of video initially shared some similarities with the Wooster groups approach, but it quickly developed a distinctive style of its own, which both uses video technology more expansively and concerns its self more with screen culture and the impact of technology on contemporary culture as a subject.

• The builders association largely bases productions on real life rather than fictional text.

• Believing that electronic media can reanimate theatre, Weem’s argues that ‘screen culture has become the dominant means of artistic expression, and if your going to be a functioning artist in the world today you have to grapple with that on some level’.

• Weem’s has described the company’s productions as: ‘like a live film onstage….you see the technicians and performers working in concert together, like a chamber orchestra, to create this overall spectacle’.

• The use of technology in the productions creates a choice for the viewer to watch either live or virtual performance; Weem believes this to be more interesting for both actors and audience members

• The reading raises the possibility that the group’s use of technology may reduce audience engagement with the performers.

• The company’s development over the past decade has moved from being concerned with the possibilities it offered for experiment from received texts to with employing increasingly sophisticated technology as a means of exploring the impact of communications on contemporary senses of identity and being.

 

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

 

• This reading looks at Tragedia Endogonidia, also known as BR.04, which is a term, and play created by Romeo Castelluci, which is a combination of tragedy and endogonidia.

• What concerns Causey is not the aesthetic challenges to theatre, but rather the obstacles constructed to block the sovereignty of the autonomous, free subject within the bio-politics of digital culture.

• Causey suggests that the notion of a virtual was dead even as it first appeared, and that the more interesting works of contemporary performance that are concerned with the problems of digital culture are in fact not disrupted by the allusions and aesthetics of the virtual, but are dealing with the material of bio-politics of embodddedness.

• Important works in the problem of embodeddness includes Orlan’s surgical interventions, Stelarc’s prostheses, and Eduardo Kac’s transgenic art not as conditions of virtuality, but as bodily explorations of embodeddness.

• Causey states that theatre and artists such as La Fura Baus, dumb type and SRS creating work not as reflections on the conditions of computer virtuality, but as bodily explorations of embodeddness.

• Castellucci suggests that ‘technology is present on the stage as a metaphor and spirit. Technology and machines are bearers of phantoms who in habit the set, the stage- the concept is animalistic. So a machine has no entrance and no exit, it lights up, it takes up a chunk of the world; in short it creates its own world. So its quite clear that it’s not mealy a gadget, a decoration, because it is energised and it is triggered by argument with the actor, and thus it has in some way a dehumanising function. It dehumanises the actor, puts him in danger, places him in the paradoxical position of deuteragonist, so that finally it creates an inhuman tension.’

• Castellucci also suggests that ‘the machine, unlike the animal, is inhuman because its pure function without experience. The actor falls between these two camps, between animal and machine, he’s both things at the same time, pure function and pure exposed body, pur being. Technology becomes a central metaphor and, as such, it’s often its more useful to hide it in order to make it effective: it’s the operation or action of the machine that’s important, not the machine itself’.

• In BR.04, without the body, the language has no mark. The performance dispenses with narrative and character for a corporal embodiment of time and space.

• Castellucci’s intention with BR.04 is to rethink tragedy, bring it into the here and now. It is designed to make the spectators aware of their existence, their state of being.

• BR.04 shows the life that is no longer sacrificeable, but simply placed out with the garbage; the production of a corpse: the terminal point of modern technology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 3 - Debate 2 - Adjudicator's Report

As the adjudicators we researched the responsibilities and demands of the role deciding to use the 100 point marking process as a guide. We used a criteria that helped us judge areas of content, delivery and construction to determine which team would ultimately win.

The affirmative team's first speaker began with a brief overview of the Auslander reading, going into depth about televisions derision from theatre, the development of screens in the facilitation of the live and, most importantly, the development of our consumption habits and how our perception of the live is determined by conventions of media.

The negative's first speaker began with a rebuttal, claiming that media is simply an extension rather than a fundamental part of the live and that live performances that use media are extended versions of the live. She also claimed that the "direct correlation" of live performance and media proves that they are two corresponding yet separate entities, however she did not explain how this makes them in opposition. She argued about the presence of the live as distinguishable from media, referencing Phelan's theory of performance as defined by the interaction between performance and spectator in the "now".

The affirmative's second speaker then challenged the negative team's claim of live and mediatized performance being separate entities by giving the example of a cricket game, when the umpire is often a computer and consequently the live is dependant on and determined by the media (rather than visa versa) and thus inseparable. The 2nd speaker then elaborated on Benjamin's theory of human perception of the live via media, claiming that modern perception is inseparably mediatized. Some of the 2nd speakers arguments dealing with "online liveness" and such were structurally problematic however her preceding arguments were all relevant and strong.

The 2nd for the negative rebutted by agreeing with the affirmative's claim to complete dependence claiming that if dependence is possible that two separate forms must exist - a valid point however at this point it became evident that the negative's argument concerning opposition was now flawed and their focus was on the entities as separate. The 2nd then brought up some interesting examples about the spectators experience being where the difference between live and mediatized is based - giving the example of the possibility of Brittany tripping in one of her highly rehearsed and mediatized concerts, the importance of created space, intended atmosphere, spontaneity, feedback and community.

The 3rd speaker of the affirmative rebutted by pointing out that even if live and mediatized performance are separate entities that does not mean they are in opposition, which suggests they should resist one another rather than being mutually dependant and building on one another (which the 2nd negative speaker previously agreed they did).

The 3rd speaker of the negative team did not address this very strong argument from the affirmative team but simply built further on the idea of live and mediatized performance being two separate entities.

We felt the negative team argued strongly with original and insightful examples highlighting the separation between live performance and mediatized performances. Strong examples and arguments including highlighting the sensory oppurtunities present in LIVE (their definition of live being that of proximity and immediacy) performances that are not present in those that are mediatized, such as the atmosphere and energy of being on the dance floor of a concert and the smells of the food cooked on stage in a performance.

The negative team successfully argued (despite some contradictions) that there is indeed a difference between live and mediatized performance however the question posed regarded an "opposition" rather than simply a separation - it was the negative team's failure to address the question of opposition that weakened their argument. The affirmative team (third speaker) pointed this out, challenging the basis of the negative teams entire argument, to which the negative team had no response.

The affirmative team argued strongly, rebutting well, weakening the negative's arguments and coming up with creative and tight examples to support their own. The negative team argued exceptionally well considering the difficulty of their task, they were well researched, enthusiastic and creative however we felt the affirmative team deserved to win for the previously outlined reasons.

Week Three Readings

Debate # 2 – Week 3

Chair report

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

Both the affirmative and negative team speakers showed a great level of research and commitment to this debate. The affirmative team opened the debate with a definition and outline of their key point – which was the fact that mediated and live performances are mutually dependant of one another. There was an overview of the areas each speaker would be addressing, and also a broad overview of both a live and mediatised performance in reference to Auslander’s ‘Live Performance in a Mediatised Culture’. Early in the debate we heard examples of having large screens set up at sporting or musical concerts, mentioning that these screens aided the audience in feeling intimate and closer to the event. The fact that audience needs have evolved over centuries was also stated, and mediatised performances these days are meeting these higher expectations – which in turn, are expected of them. These messages were tied in from speaker to speaker and there was also mention of both Auslander and Benjamin to bring up a reference to ‘online liveness’ which outlined the relationship users had with sites such as Facebook, Skype and Youtube . This further outlined the feeling of intimacy and liveness felt when using these mediums and recreated the synergy between mediatised performance depending on, and adding to the live performance. The summary of the affirmative case with refuting points and a reiteration of the earlier speaker’s comments followed, including the changing needs of an audience and meeting their expectations and desires. When these live performances evolved into a mediated one it was due to a pressure created from the mass culture.

The negative team explored the idea of both live and mediated having a correlated existence. The opening speaker outlined the negative case and provided an overview of what each speaker would be covering. The earlier messages were based around examples of watching sports/events at home and how even though these shows are ‘live’ they are a mediated performance. An interesting point raised here was the fact that an event going live – is actually the product of mediatised elements. A sample of Peggy Phelan quotes and other relevant examples followed, with each speaker reinforcing their debate case - that there is an inherent opposition between live and mediatised performance. The debate progressed and speakers showed a number of more tangible and real examples which I felt the audience connected with. The debate was anchored with a humorous summary that was referenced back to hunter and collector days when performances were certainly not mediatised. Another of the tangible examples was given here with an example of dating several men on FaceBook at once, and the closing point of ‘mediated will never be as good as live’ was raised.

The adjudicators left the room to make their decision, and the class debriefed on the debate. When asked which team provided the stronger argument and case, a unanimous vote was awarded in favour of the negative team. We heard class feedback on what was felt the negative team’s key points were – and where the affirmative team could have strengthened their argument. At some point it seemed the debate was a little lost or confused from the fact that the question asked about the forms having an ‘inherent opposition’, to the forms differing completely.

The adjudicators delivered their results, and awarded the debate in favour of the affirmative team. Adjudicators followed strict debate criteria and felt that the affirmative team stayed true to their key messages and provided stronger content, delivery and construction of their speeches. Congratulations again to all speakers and adjudicators – and thanks to Michael for helping out teams as debate advisor!

Week 3 Debate Notes - 1st Speak Affirmative 1st Group

There is no inherent opposition between live and mediated performance.

Team Line…

Auslander argues that the differences between live and mediated performance lie at the level of cultural economy. He believes they are mutually dependent (as the affirmative will argue) for historical and experiential reasons. We the affirmative believe that 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.

In our arguments we identify live performance with intimacy, immediacy and disappearance, whereas mediatised performance with the presence of a mass audience, reproduction and repetition. However we will show how these definitions are no longer so clear-cut.

I will argue firstly, how audience expectations and responses have been conditioned and shaped by our televisual experiences thus live performance is now a by product of the mediated. Secondly I will show how film and video as performance mediums are not determined by ontological characteristics but are historically bound and culturally determined. Finally I will analyse the King Pins as an example of how the “traditional” role of live as the original performance has been transformed in modern performance art.

The second speaker will take my points further and explain Auslander’s argument that the notion of live and mediated forms of performance are mutually dependent through examples of technological changes in media including social and internet liveness.

The third speaker will sum up our key points whilst also touching on how the approaches to performance and characterisation have shifted.

Audience expectations and responses have been conditioned by mediatised performance. 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 pre-formed by film and television. The purely live performance is rare. The closeness and proximity that television creates with the viewer has forced live performance to recreate this sensation.

Our definition of live has been shaped by the concept of “live broadcasts” being delivered by tv reporters we know and trust speaking directly to our families through the box in our living room that we have grown up with as another member of the family. Hence we can see, as Auslander states, that modern audiences have become desensitised to the differences between the live and mediated.

Videotapes, along with other recording media, deteriorate with each use thus over time when we replay a video we are actually viewing a different physical product. Even though we may only be able to witness this when massive flaws in the tape occur, with every play the tape is degenerating. It could be said then that disappearance is not distinguishable as an ontological quality specific to live performance. In a very literal sense video and recordable medium are going through a disappearing process much the same as live performance.

If we examine history or speak to any member of our family who lived through World War 2, they will tell us that films and even news broadcasts were viewable only at certain places and times. Films were never usually seen more than once and visiting the theatre for the nightly news a social occasion. Here we can see parallels to our original definition of live performance being an unrepeated experience.

However, modern film is experienced as repetition, we can even duplicate our favourite films to view over and over again. Although there has been little transition in the media itself thus showing how the oppositions between live and mediated performance are historically embedded.

As stated by Auslander – “Repetition is not an ontological characteristic of either film or video that determines the experiences these media can provide, but an historically contingent effect of their culturally determined uses.” (Conference Archives)

An example of how modern performance art blurs the lines between our conceived definitions of live and mediated is highlighted in the King Pins live shows. Their shows utilise appropriation of iconic elements of music video and recreate these as a live performance. Interestingly the mediatised has become the point of reference for their live performances.

The work of the king pins showcase Auslanders perspective that forms of live performance have increasingly become like mediatised events. Although their live shows do create the sense of intimacy and immediacy we have come to expect in the 21st century, they emphasize how these expectations have been developed through television and video culture.

Team Line…

Summary of Readings
Postdramatic Theatre Hans- Thies Lehman
POSTMODERN
- The term postmodern theatre refers to is the time span of the 1970’s - 1990’s.
- Postmodern theatre is described as the deconstructed theatre with interactions of multimedia, restoratively traditionalist theatre and the theatre of gestures and movement.
- It is hard to characterize the features of postmodern theatre but a few of them are mentioned in the reading: ambiguity, celebrating art as fiction. Celebrating theatre as a process, multiple codes, deformation, performer as theme and protagonist, text as basic material, performance as a third term between drama and theatre and resisting interpretation.
- Postmodern theatre is said to be without the use of discourse and a focus on mediation, gesture, rhythm and tone.

MEDIA
- What this paragraph is expressing is the difference between the live performance and the mediated. Live performance has the quality of participation and intimacy with a concrete reality of a place, the time, and the people who produce signs in the theatre etc. With the interaction of media and live performance the communication structure differs from what the meaning is to the viewer and in the meaning that is intended.
- Media can play many different roles in postmodern theatre. It can be merely the inspiration for the work, the media technology can ply a major role in the performance and theatre and media art can meet in the form of video installation.
- The use of media and live performance can create ‘virtual spaces’ where the live takes over the media and vise versa.
- Sometimes viewers find the media images more fascinating than the live performance. This can be due to the relation of the image and media to reality is dispatched. The media is removed from real life almost taking back or inviting viewer to escape reality ignoring the reality of the live performance.


“Live films on stage: the Builders Association”
1. Builders association, employed video dramatically and didactically to provide innovative works at the interface between live and mediated performance
· They shared similarities with the Wooster groups approaches however they soon discovered their own distinctive style of its own.
· They made a shift to “real life” stories from the fictional text.
· Through working collaboratively with the technicians and performers we see them live on stage in a “concert together”.
2. Imperial Motel and Jump cut.
· Through lots of research into the Faust Myth however once the production was created there was a sense of “disrespect for etiquette”
· Jump Cut: Bringing together thematic concerns with human kind’s desire for knowledge and power over nature and the contemporary technology ramifications.
· Four scenes serve to illustrate the productions layering of live and mediated, textual and filmic sources.
· Faust symbolised the ambiguous gains of the enlightenment project , this tone is to keep with the plays tension between contemporary political and technological context.
3. Jet Lag
· Man’s journey around the world sailing race before throwing himself overboard and woman kidnapping her son and flying over the Atlantic 167 times , living in planes and airports before dying of jet lag.
· Use of video diaries projected on a screen to show his journey which allows parallels to evolve between the way technology may be used to create a persuasively realistic fiction.
· The screen provides changing backdrops.
· Interpretation of a metatheatrical comment on the gap between what is purportedly presented as a “picture of reality” on video and what actually goes into making the representations.
· Sarah’s story is focussed on constant travel, with once again a constant changing and disorienting backdrop.
· Idea of “non-existence” where the performers are literally in a non-place with a virtual setting produced by electronic images.
4. Xtravaganza
· Looks back on the forms which proceeded much of what is now called multimedia performance.
· Use of dynamic lighting and slide projections
· Much was pre-recorded but there was a considerable amount of simultaneously edited live relay where technicians are given improvisational material to work with.
· Projection of legs and the camera’s use of feet in performances to turn the performer into mechanical objects.
· Fuller and her flowing drapes and experimentation with lights.
5. Alledeen
· Debate on the extent to which technological effects may seduce spectators rather then engage.
· Idea of “global souls”- the transformations in the story as it moved from its original Persian and Indian contexts into western literature, theatre and file were seen as analogous with the way people function as global souls.
· Visiting call-centres- the relationship of mimicry established between live performers and documentary video here functions to suggest the authenticity of the representation of call-centre life that is to follow.
· Opportunities for linguistic misunderstandings as the characters situations are produced.
· Paradoxically to the intercontinental proceedings, audiences see the technicians hard at work constructing and transforming the performers.
· Use of electronic imagery in a more complex, continuous way then the other productions.

“Memories of the feutre: technology and the body in dumb type’s Memorandum”
· “The model for embeddedness challenges the dominance of the virtual, and what stands as impossible is not a problem of representation, but the sovereignty of the subject”.
· “artists and theorists who continue to confront the field of the virtual usefully….through a strategic manipulation of the performing body converging and colliding with the virtual”.
· “if mediatised culture has moved from the simulated screens of the virtual to the modified bodies of embeddedness, I suggest that the notion of a virtual theatre was dead even as it first appeared, and that the most interesting works of contemporary performance that are concerned with the problems of digital culture are in fact not disturbed by the illusions and aesthetics of the virtual, but are dealing with the material and bio-politics of embeddedness”.
· One key example used to describe simulation to embeddeness is a work entitled Societas Raffaello Sanzio’s Tragedia Endogonidia. The work is a research project which is based on the future of tragedy over the time of several years. It has performed in a cycle of specific and different episodes in cities in Europe.
· Costuming involved within the work ranges from “playful clothing to spiritual garb, and ultimately to uniform of the law, communicates clearly. Upon the body we place the signs of the self, God, and the law, and with each layer the subjects life is further removed, further subject to control and party to the repression”.
· “What we see presented on this stage is the intimate relation of violence and the law. Violence is used to establish and maintain the law.”. – We see another tragedy unfold.
· “The performance shows the life that is no longer sacrificeable, but simply placed out with the garbage; the production of a corpse: the terminal point of modern technology”.
· “Castelluci, in an almost surrealist fashion, links the opposing terms of tragedy – which is culturally, geographically and historically specific, grounded on death, and endogondial, which is outside culture, biological, but figured as immortal”.
· “When we combine the art works, propagandistic manipulations and atrocities above with the embedding technologies of genetically modified and technologically supplemented plants and animals, Western culture finds itself at a new stage of ‘the era of the spectacle’ where the site of power has shifted from the exterior screens of simulation to the interior body of the material subject”.
· “Embeddedness threatens, beckons, and promises; beckoning extensions and improvements to the body that might aide the disabled, assist in curing disease, ease some suffering whilst promising to develop the human/machine interface to an enlightened level”.

By Fiona Hallam, Ebony Keys and Hayley Bennett

Week 3 Reading Summary, Emily Newbould, Gavin Broll and Rebecca Levy

The third reading will be added later on due to technical difficulties

Greg Giesekam
‘Live Films on Stage: The Builder’s Association’ in Staging the Screen

• This article discusses the modes of The Builder’s Association as a theatrical company which is at the “forefront” of “hypermediatic productions” and experimental theatre (p.142).
• The Builders Association was established in 1993 by Marianne Weems, Jeff Webster and Jennifer Tipton, this company is at the forefront of experimental design in the areas of computer animation, live relay and the interface between live and mediated performers
• Similarities are outlined between the two experimental theatre groups, The Wooster Group and their use of technology incorporated within their production and The Builder’s Association in relation to their handling of video installation on stage.
• Theorists such as Weems believe that the use of electronic media has the newfound power to “reanimate theatre” (p.142).
• With the constant evolving of technology there seems to be a ‘shift’ in the contextual foundations as well as they are based predominantly on ‘real-life’ stories, which enables audiences to relate to the productions on a greater level.
• Weems points out that although the incorporation of new media into theatrical productions becomes a far more interesting development for the actor it is as equally or even more so interesting for the audience as they are confronted with the choice of watching either the actor and image.
• The camera and screens allow the Builders Association to create different expressions for a variety of audiences as well as their ‘live’ ones.
• Through revising a variety of productions by The Builder’s Association and analysing particular scenes of technological and media-driven notability, throughout the past decade Giesekam points out how the textual themes have now changed due to this focus on technological incorporation into theatre (p.174).
• Textual references are now concerned with ‘the place of science in contemporary society’ and how it relates to the human body and identity.
• A relationship is constructed firstly on the stage thus becoming physically present and acknowledged by the audience and then follows by becoming textually present, of which Giesekam refers to as the “double-edged way”.
• • The Builders Association are firm believers in aiding their shows with monitors and projections screens, which emphasizes their acknowledgement of mediation in contemporary stage production.

Hans-Thies Lehmann
‘Postmodern and Postdramatic’ and ‘Media’ in Postdramatic Theatre

• Lehmann focuses on postmodern theatre between the 1970s-1990s. A theatre of deconstruction, multimedia theatre, restoratively theatre, theatre of gestures and movement (p.25).
• There is a lack of textual meaning within newer theatre productions and what needs to be attempted is an analysis of ‘theatre’ with its ‘postdramatic aesthetics’ (p.26).
• Brecht proclaims that theatre without the dramaturgical process become far more interesting such as productions which take on multiple plots at once and avoids theatrical norms (p.26-27).
• Lehmann summons the idea of representation of an image on stage through the contrast between theatre (as it constitutes a sign rather than reality) and film (which is a ‘photographic reproduction’) (p.167).
• He also questions why the spectator will chose to stare at an image rather than the performing body. Lehmann provides the answer, there seems to be far more referential knowledge behind the image, “The electronic image is an idol (not simply an icon).” (p.171)
• Through the notion of theatrical presence Lehmann provides the analogy that “the body in theatre is a signifier (not the object) of desire. The electronic image, by contrast, is pure foreground” (p.171).
• Theatre itself becomes a virtuality through “the most simple representation of death” although the electronic image can provide limitless meaning.

Wk 3 Debate (Group 2) {Adjudicator's Report}

Notes: Live vs Mediated (before the Debate)

'There is no inherent opposition between live and mediated performance'

Affirmative points & examples:

* TV broadcasts as live transmissions. TV is immediate, normally one time events. TV shows are broadcast in a specific timeslot, and once it ends, there is little or no chance to watch it again. Hence TV has the essence of liveness, modelling itself on the essence of theatre.

* TV is interactive, just like the live theatre. For eg. switching channels. The spectator chooses to respond in their own way. Just like in theatre, if a spectator is enjoying what they are watching, they would be staying/clapping/laughing, otherwise they can just leave and walk out.

* TV has a sense of intimacy, just like the live theatre. Events from outside are transmitted into the viewer's home. Lohr (1940: 3) -'the viewer of the television feels himself to be on the scene'. The viewer is in direct contact with the performer as events unfold in the present.

*Episodes of a TV show is similar to chapters in a play- hence live theatre and mediated are similar in structure

*While a live performance is unique and can earn mass profits in itself (i.e. music concerts), being mediatised adds value to a live performance. A live performance can be recorded in a dvd, marketed and sold to increase profits, after the event has past. Hence live and mediated work together and benefit one another.

Negative points & examples:

There are distinctions and opposition between live and mediated.

*TV- may be live, but audience interaction and responses are not 'real' nor 'genuine'. E.g. audiences having to applaud on cue, canned laughter, etc. If live, it should be a real, present, first reaction to the performance, rather than a fake mediated one that is only given when audience is told to do so.

* We tend to watch the screens rather than the live performance in mixed media performances- the live and filmed compete with one another for the attention of the spectators. Sometimes the mediated is more visually appealing than the 'bland' live.

*There is more variety and freedom in the mediated, while live has its restrictions. For. e.g. you can do whatever you want in a music video clip, with the advantage of visual special effects, such as riding a whale covered in colourful gems. But you can't really do it live. Hence the mediated appeals more to one's imagination and creativity, while live performances are restricted to the boundaries of reality.

* In film/TV (mediated) use of camera shots and angles, breaks up the performance, (e.g. high or low angles, close ups), making audiences interpret and view a performance in a certain way. On the other hand, in a live performance theatre, audiences are given more of an objective view, since they view the performance as a whole, rather than certain focused snippets.

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Debate:

Notes taken when listening to Group 1:

Affirmative:

Live & Mediatised -mutually dependent (there is no opposition)

* Dependent due to technological advances/changes. Good use of example: multimedia performances such as a DJ concert performance which includes mixed sounds and videos, live audience interaction, while playing live. This is still considered a live performance.

* Brought up an interesting concept of 'social liveness' within the mediatised (e.g. with the Internet/social networking sites), how virtual entities feel a sense of liveness while being connected, hence we experience liveness through the mediatised.

Negative:

(There IS opposition between Live & Mediatised)

*Good use of an example where there are distinctions between live and mediatised performances- there are different courses out there for actors: acting for film, acting for tv, and acting for stage.

*Good example with the 'live' singer- Physical presence of the singer. People get to see the 'real' and 'genuine' singer, rather than just a mediated image.

*Live performance can exist as an entity by itself without mediation, hence they don't need to depend on each other to exist and function. E.g. historically, theatre existed before mediatisation and technology such as TV and Film.

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My group (Group 2 Debate)

Affirmative:

* Intimacy and immediacy of TV is similar to that of theatre. Eg. Use of big screens at concerts bring people closer to the live.

*Audience behaviour is mediatised on TV e.g. use of cues such as 'applause' or 'canned laughter'

*2nd speaker- good rebuttal. Mentioned a good example with sporting games-presence of the umpire 'having to wait' for the screen to judge the ball, shows the live and mediatised are mutually dependent on one another.

*Intimacy- The mediatised helps bring us closer to live performance, e.g. can listen to Pink Floyd (music performance) decades ago, in your own present home.

* 3rd speaker- good rebuttal. Acknowledged the fact that yes the live and mediated are 2 separate entities but they do NOT oppose each other. Both build upon each other rather than oppose.

*Internet allowed more access for audiences to performances (e.g. youtube clips)

Negative:

*Made good clear definition of the 'live'. Performance= of the present. Physical presence of the performer. eg. at a football game or concert, we are still able to distinguish between what's live and what's mediated.
I could relate to this because I've been to concerts where I'm sitting in seats, and its always a different experience compared to being in the 'Standing' area where the moshpit is. When sitting in seats, I'm further away, and hence cannot see the performer, so I watch the giant screens instead. I get an overall good 'visual' experience. However, when I was at a concert in the moshpit, getting squished against bodies, jumping up and down with the crowd to the music, I had a more adrenaline pumping/thrilling experience. This was more of a sensory/audio experience, as well as a visual experience- being only metres away from the performer.

*Good distinction with mediatisation as existing in the spectator's memory, rather than physically present (live).

*Mediatisation: Access/preservation- we are merely watching a 'copy' of something, as it is recorded and documented, hence it is not live. Hence the value of a 'copy' is smaller. This is true as I personally treasure the time I was performing in a musical production, more than I do with my dvd copy of that performance. When watching over it again, it just doesnt feel the same, nor does it have the same authenticity to it.

* Concept of live= spontaneity, audience feedback and interaction. Senses can be altered by an immediate presence. Good and unique example- cooking on stage. Audience is able to taste the cooking, hence more senses to be provoked i.e. taste & smell.
This is a unique live experience, whereas a mediated experience would just be visual and sound (without the taste & smell).

*Historically, the live always existed i.e. actors using their voices and bodies to project. You don't need media to engage the audience as the live should be able to engage the audience anyway through actor involvement

My adjudicating team printed out a rough guideline to marking, looking at content, delivery and construction of their speeches. We gave more heavier weighting for content, deciding which team had the stronger argument and case line.

It was a tough decision. We came to the conclusion that the Negative team were stronger in terms of having stronger arguments and clear concise points and structure, and a stronger delivery. They came up with their own unique examples which supported their arguements.

The Affirmative team also built a good argument, even though their delivery was weaker.

In the end we gave it to the Affirmative, because the Negative's case line emphasised Live & Mediated being 2 separate entities. Although this is true in itself, the debate was more about each being in 'opposition' with each other. Affirmative pointed this out, but Negative never followed up.

Hence, Affirmative won because they followed through the case line. Negative had strong points raised, but didn't link/follow through with the case line.