Re: [microsound] hidden from the audience

[ndk <ndkent@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

regarding doing a live performance with the performer hidden.

Now I realize I've not actually witnessed what was going on here. I'm
just looking at it from a functional and conceptual standpoint. Please
don't take it as an affront to the actual performance or the people involved.

Johnnymisheff@xxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> hmmmmmm...
> i'm not sure if you ended up enjoying the idea of a duchampian style experiment, or if you'd have our whole lot scrap the idea of an escape from the everydayness of man or woman on stage with laptop.

Well I guess "escape" is being used in more than the figurative sense
here :-0

I'll definitely admit that it is interesting enough to spark debate.

I was just examining the downsides after the upside had been mentioned.
Its sort of a tradeoff where, I take it, in order to reduce the bias of
encountering a laptop performance and for better or worse? in order I
guess to reduce the pressure of the performer having to be seen
performing with a laptop. Duchampian descriptions give some carte
blanche to it all but I'm sort of concerned that any sort of advantage
to a live performance other than making the assertion that it is indeed
live also sort of gets put away in the other room. 

Its a big generalization but generally I consider a performance a trade
off in that I accept what perhaps would be considered imperfections or
compromises in the sound and performance in order to receive presence,
perhaps an element of risk and hopefully musical reactions to the
environment. That I guess is the problem with the experiment in my mind.
the tradeoff is still there but what is the benefit to the audience, the
perfomers may be freeer, but its also not connected by its absence. The
listener's sensitivity may benefit from not seeing someone sitting there
with a laptop, but couldn't some recording carefully selected for
effectiveness do just that? The experiment sort of reinforces the laptop
medium has a problem in a performance context  and the concept of hiding
something is sort of a letdown if its explained IMHO. Its not like you
were hiding the performer and the performer turned out to be something
really mindblowing, like a room full of plants or a country music band
being processed by max into 3lectronica.

> thank god for human nature, and it's ability to impress us with the new and exciting.  maybe this nature could spell out a new form of performance, or maybe we could adjust our inability to see things that aren't particularly stricking at first glance.

Shouldn't there be an element of faith and conviction that perhaps the
music might be compelling enough to be persuasive on its own? 

It's maybe a bit superficial to say so, but generally I read a lot about
reasonably drastic steps being taken to deal with a type of work that
maybe itsn't that well suited for a context to start with. It becomes an
issue of how to make a work suitable rather than how to make a suitable
work for a context?  

> i am personally a big fan of an escape from the stage.  and not even in a physical sense, but perhaps even in the subtlety of a mask.  a mask allows for a whole new experience because a person performing with a mask on will likely lose most if not all of their inhibitions to be raw, and produce energy not yet seen outside the confines of his/her bathroom-- mirror steamed, naked body, etc.  i have enjoyed this masked performance on a few occasions.  it's easier for a person to get naked if you can't see their face.  the more we lose these inhibitions with masks, the potential to lose the masks and let the raw shine through becomes more evident.

Nothing wrong with that at all. Unless the mask becomes a barrier for
the perfomace taking place. What I think the initial hidden performace
does is put in place a barrier to interaction. 

I guess wearing a mask or hiding in an other room both send a bit of an
inadvertent message too that there is a reason to remain hidden. Like on
the positive side, like a masked costume ball one hopes the people are
less inhibited, but there is also that nagging suspicion of what are
they really hiding.

> i propose a detatchment of traditional values when something nontraditional is being displayed.  i don't mean that we should lose our ability to constructively criticize.
> -johnny

I suppose the surprise of doing this once has impact. I was mainly
concerned that it seemed to be a clever spin on hiding something
inherently dissapointing.

nicholas kent

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