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.