[Dancecult-l] liveness -> transmedia performance/installation/reception contexts

[James Tobias]

Hello,

I lurk on this list a lot, since I don't follow EDM as closely as I  
used to.  But I enjoy, and learn from, the topics and the discussion.

A lot of people here probably are aware of the large literature on   
"liveness" and TV in the area of television studies.  The ideological  
presentation of "liveness" for example, or the idea of the live  
broadcast as a "media event."  Those materials and debates include  
everything from Paik's "global groove" to analyses of Good Morning  
America's scary TV "family values," or terrorism studies.

Re: Denise' comment below, I thought the following might be  
interesting.  Back in the late 1940s, when TV was in the infancy of  
its implementation as a consumer medium, the problems of coordinating  
live broadcast were fairly complex, involving many new and evolving  
positions for "back stage" positions that were rather different from  
those of radio or cinema studios or live venues.

At that time, observing the need to coordinate a. the various "camera  
frame" activities, b. the network broadcasting activities apart from  
the actual "show," as well as c. distribution and audience reception,  
one insider proposed "musical performance" as a way of understanding  
and organizing TV production generally.  Live TV, whether featuring  
music or not, was to be understood in his view as hybrid, distributed  
performance.  Also at that same time there were also various  
proposals for "visual music" inspired production platforms for  
synchronized audiovisual content.  These proposals -- for TV as  
hybrid music performance, and for visual music as hardware production  
-- were published in the same journal, for instance.

So, I guess my larger point is that electronic communication networks  
have long drawn on musical notions of "liveness" for coordinating  
hybrid forms of studio, performance, and audience positions, as well  
as for thinking about hardware needs.

The various aspects of "TV as music" that the writer I'm referring to  
above had in mind were not entirely different from those that Denise  
describes as a "continuum" of "emergence," "flexibility,"  
"spontaneity," "preparedness, "adherence to script."  I agree that  
these are useful ways of thinking about the problem of liveness.

What's interesting to me is that these terms, and the conditions that  
motivate them in analysis, are not necessarily new, or specific to  
EDMC -- and that's a good thing, because in my view, it emphasizes  
that EDMC contexts are a historical development with expressive,  
material force behind them.  Taking this farther, comparing different  
historical instances can give us a sense of "power," "violence,"  
"ethics" in various different contexts -- as people have brought up  
recently on this list regarding EDMC events.

I guess most people do EDMC studies because the vitality of much of  
what they're studying is so much more palpable than in commercial  
media, and perhaps because they aren't interested in historical TV  
studies.  But EDMC studies help me think about moving .... towards a  
historical and comparative analysis of transmedia installation/ 
performance/distribution contexts ...

warm regards, and keep dancing,

jt

On Jun 26, 2007, at 7:02 AM, Denise Dalphond wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> This discussion is bringing up a lot of fascinating ideas in my little
> ethno head.  I think it would be great to develop this into a more
> rigorous discussion of defining "liveness" as it relates to DJ
> performance and electronic dance music.  I hesitate to create a
> distinction between DJ performance, involving the typical set-up of
> electronic and possibly digital equipment and use of pre-recorded  
> sound
> in a new performance context, and other "live" performances.  I would
> call typical DJ performance live as well - there can be various levels
> of composition, improvisation, etc. in DJ performance.  An important
> idea in this train of thought is "emergence" in performance, in terms
> of folklore, anthro, linguistics.  This is the idea that there can  
> be a
> continuum in performance of varying degrees of emergence, flexibility,
> spontaneity, as well as preparedness, adherance to script, and so on.
>
> Of course, performance can be a label that applies to recorded  
> cultural
> expressions as well, but "liveness" in this definition of emergence in
> performance could certainly include DJ performance and electronic  
> dance
> music in various "live" settings.
>
> What do y'all think about defining "live" performance in this way?
>
> Denise
> --
> Denise MM Dalphond
> Assistant Instructor, Motown
> Graduate Assistant, Liberia Collections Project
> Department of Folklore & Ethnomusicology
> Indiana University
> ddalphon at indiana.edu
>
>
>
>
>
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