Virtuality in Performance Evaluation

I took Virtuality in Performance as i was interested in an area of drama that i knew nothing about. However as the weeks progressed i discovered that the material studied was closer to home than i thought.
On a regular day to day basis it is typical of my routine to check my emails or visit the fascinating world of facebook! without noticing that the internet takes up a large part of my time, providing us with everything. Today we can shop online, order food, watch films that haven't even been released yet and the obvious - communication with friends, family and complete strangers. The internet uses the media to draw people in, and as well as the influence of magazines and televisions on our lifestyles, telling us how to live or what to eat, the internet provides a whole other universe for us to explore, controlling us and sculpting us.
Through the duration of this course i no longer saw facebook as a network of communication but a ground for performance. Although we may not admit it, we portray ourselves in the way we want others to see us, whether it be people we know, or people we don't. We choose our photos carefully, we put them up for the reason that we want them to be seen. We don't reveal every truth about ourselves, the viewers become our adueince, judging and examining us.
Today everything has become so modern, so accessible that we have become greedy and impaitent. We expect everything on demand, and have become part of a digital culture where everything is simply a representaion of what is real. It is scary how quickly times are changing, are we starting to forget the meaning of values?
Linking this up with regarding performance, we have to ask the question "Has traditional performance been lost?". In traditional theatre today we have "Jerry Springer the Opera", Chitty Chitty Bang Bang now with a flying car and not to mention the 3D production of the Lord of the Rings. These are just a few examples of how modern technology and the trends of society today have produced competition for classic untouched performances that have marked a place in history.

Through Virtuality i was able to investigate the strengths of both modern and traditional performances by writing an essay on it. It was shocking to discover how inlfuenced people have become with the here and now and the decrease in popularity for traditional performance.

In today's generation i have learnt that anything can be a performance, i learnt to look closer into youtube and myspace and areas i wouldn't think of, looking at whether a performance is worthwhile and what constituetes a worthwhile performance.
I believe that a worthwhile performance gives the audience something to thinkbout and take away with them. With the effects of a virtual world on performance we become confused by what we are taking away from it as we become distracted by the bright lights and special effects.

Virtuality in Performance enabled me to appreciate the simple things in life that we take for granted but also to appreciate the capabilites of modern technology today. When stepping out of the box it is crazy to see the sort of virtual reality that we are living in, it is almost as if we are part of the Truman Show, because of how controlled we have become, and how easily influenced we are.
The influence of the media, which we discovered lead us to our presentation topic. We wanted to look at violence in society and see whether it was influenced by the potrayal of violence in the media. Looking at an important issue which is growing in society today also helped us to look closer at how easily affected and influenced we are. We wanted to construct a live debate involving the audience to get general opinions. We wanted to produce a heated argument and make people aware of the increase of violence in our society. Unfortunately our presentation didn't go to plan due to group and technological problems which was a great shame as we had spent so long researching and constructing the topic.
Overall we benefited as a group by working together and learning about an issue that we give little thought to.
Virtuality in Performance has been a positive and enjoyable learning experience for me and a topic which i would like to extend my knowledge further in.

Violence on the internet?

As part of my group presentation we have been looking at Violence on the internet, and asking ourselves if the internet is contributing to violence in today's society. It is hard to distinguish, as there is so much violence present in the world around us today, which is caused by a numerous amount of reasons. Many people may blame films, video games, music and so on as they appear as the foundation influence towards violence, but no one really thinks about how accesible the internet is to access these clips and songs again but a lot of the time these have become edited. For example there can be acts of violence taken from the news or from movies that have been edited with songs, and quotes which can even change the mood of the topic, forexample making it funny. It is strange to think that people will actually watch these clips and posts as a form of entertainment, and not thinking anything of it. Ofcourse people can make their comments and disagree with the whole idea, but many people don't even acknowledge how serious what they are looking at is, and examples such as happy slapping show a perfect example of an act of violence that many people will find entertaining. Sites such as youtube allow people to send in their own videos of acts of violence, and people actually watch this with enjoyment, which in my opinion is very wrong to an extent, yet i am still being a hypocrit as i have watched indiviudual posts from people and thought little of it untill afterwards when i have felt bad for watching such things. I think we can say that the internet may not necessarily cause or contribute to all the problems but it definately de-sythesises people which may cause problems in the long run. Thank you xx

..Performance..

Today performance has largely become associated with the media and modern technology. In many ways performances are heightened and promoted by this, but at the same time the traditional aspect is taken away. For example we can now download almost any play or film etc. that we like to watch in the comfort of our own home for no charge. Now this seems amazing, as well as convenient, cheap and easy but where have the days gone where an audience would consist of all types of people, standing for two straight hours or sitting on wooden benches in the middle of nowhere, where the stage is simply an open space. Even today the traditional and classic theatres and performance spaces have all been tweeked by modern techonology and largely exaggurated and promoted by the media. So how can we define performance? As times are changing, people may say the definition is changing too. Is there even a definition? Every person shares different opinions and views about what performance is. For me personally.. performance is something we do for others whether it be intended or just subconciously. Performing doesn't have to be on a stage, we all perform in some way every day. As discussed in class, the modern world of facebook is a classic example of performance. We have our own little world in which we can portray ourselves however we want to, and we "act" the way we do in order to impress or put across an image of ourselves for other people.
Philip Auslander a writer on performance studies and aesthethic and cultural performances has a particular interest on the relationship between performance and media and technology. He sees a conflict between live performances whether they be traditional or not and the modern and technologial forms of performance. He sees traditional theatre as intimate as in comparison to performances enhanced by the media as limited whereas the media enables repetition and shows popularity shown by a continual mass audience. Auslander does not want to be biased as he sees like myself personally, ways in which both types of performances can be positive as well as negative. Auslander is not suggesting one is better than the other, but only that performance has changed over time, and now can be portrayed as many different meanings due to the many different options we have today. The question is can we find common ground between the live traditional performances and those enhanced by the media. Auslander closes his discussion with "the live can exist only within an economy of reproduction"..

..Virtuality..

For something to be virtual it is a representation of what is real, rather than actual reality, thus we have the term "virtual reality" or as Jamiroquai refers to as "virtual insanity" where the lyrics are listed in one of my blogs. By saying Insanity Jamiroquai looks at this whole virtual world that we live in today, as crazy and controlling, and taking over what is really "real".
Marcos Novak a transarchitect, artist and theorist, believes there is "virtual space" who believes that our experience of reality is always subjective, intersubjective and social because to Novak we as humans can not know anything except as subjects. Novak believes that the "real" is already virtual, and the "space" that he tells us about is what meditates between the real and the technological, a virtual space of conciousness.

Cool? To be or not to be?

Why does everything have to be classified as cool or uncool? What is cool? We have so many definitions of it? When really there is nothing that can be 100 percent agreed on as cool or uncool because everyone has a different perception of what is and what is not. Some people may think getting into a fight is "cool", others may completely dis agree with it. What is percieved to be cool is also affected by age and time.

Our world is rapidly changing and at a young age we may try and conform to the majority, in order to be "cool", then we may go through a phase of trying to be different from everyone else, again to be seen as "cool" and then we may just get to a stage where we really don't care and just want to be ourselves.

With the affect of time however, now at younger ages, children may want to rebel from the majority, the norm, in order to be seen as cool, and not the same as everyone else, and this is due to the culture we live in, and how quickly we all seem to be growing up, due to the media influences around us, which also then links to the whole aspect of this virtual reality that we live in today.

People now even makes jokes if someone hasn't joined facebook for example. "Your uncool if you don't have facebook, facebook is the way forward" etc. Now how uncool is that for someone to even say something like that!

Will we ever discover what really is cool and what is not? The simple answer is No. Just as we will never truly agree on what is wrong and right. We may have laws telling us this, but that doesn't stop us from doing what we as individuals think is right or wrong, what we think is acceptable or unacceptable, and what we think is cool or uncool.

What is our world coming to..

Drama is the art of gaining and maintaining people's attention therefore the media uses it to enhance this. In some ways it takes away the tradional aspect of true performance, but in other ways, it becomes more appealing to a wider audience, and at the same time promotes itself further.

Everything today has become digital, time is rapidly changing, and people are starting to depend on this "digital" and modern culture that we live in. A large majority of people today download all films, and music, which takes away the atmosphere of going to the theatre, or going to a concert for example. We forget how spoilt we are, and often take a lot for granted.

Everything is so instant to us, we become impatient waiting more than an a day for our photos to be developed, and what person does not have a digital camera or a mobile phone? What happened to the days when we took the cheap disposable cameras out for a special occasion, waiting for pictures that we have no idea how will turn out. What happened to conversation instead of internet chat or facebook?

To be cont!..

Virtual Insanity..

The wonderful words of Jamiroquai..

What we're living in
It's a wonder man can eat at all
When things are big that should be small
Who can tell what magic spells we'll be doing for us
And I'm giving all my love to this world
Only to be toldI can't see
I can't breathe
No more will we be
And nothing's going to change the way we live
Cos' we can always take but never give
And now that things are changing for the worse
Its a crazy world we're living in
And I just can't see that half of us immersed in sin
Is all we have to give these
Futures made of virtual insanity now
Always seem to, be govern'd by this love we have
For useless, twisting, our new technology
Now there is no sound - for we all live underground
And I'm thinking what a mess we're in
Hard to know where to begin
If I could slip the sickly ties that earthly man has made
And now every mother, can choose the colour of her child
That's not nature's way
Well that's what they said yesterday
There's nothing left to do but pray
I think it's time I found a new religion
It's so insane to synthesize another strain
There's something in these Futures that we have to be told.

Virtual Insanity is what we re living in.....