Variations of an Audience (2009)
[Variations of an Audience was a work designed to be performed only once, in the context of the launch of the book Theatrum Anatomicum (and Other Performance Lectures) at the Bruce High Quality Foundation University on October 22, 2009, inaugurating the performance lecture series Edifying, curated by Beatrice Gross. The work is an experiment on what in sociolinguistic theory has been described as Audience Design and Style-Shifting, which involves the way in which speakers adjust their modes of speaking in relation to their audience.]
Ladies and Gentlemen:
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Audiences are endangered species.
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They are slowly vanishing in this world showered with limelight,where 15 minutes of famehas now a cacophony of 24/7 programming.
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We all speak at the same time, and no one listens. When everyone is an artist, no one can be in the audience.We only sit offstage because we are waiting for our turn in the lectern.
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What we call audiences today, like the one here tonight, is nothing more than a collection of highly individualized minds.You all are authors, we all produce things: you take pictures, you write blogs, you all own creative real-state. You all here tonight are so different. How can me, or anyone, talk to you in a comprehensive manner so that you all can feel engaged?
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Unfortunately, most people who lecture have failed to recognize this simple fact. They still speak to audiences as if they existed as one whole, as if this hypothetical and amorphousmass was a homogenous group of listeners, nor a heterogenous entity of speakers. They talk to this hypothetical audience as if they thought and felt exactly like them.
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Let’s take, for instance, Slavoj Zizek.
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Slavoj Zizek talks to everyone as if we all were Slavoj Zizek. A scholar assumes we all are scholars interested in long bibliographies and in the reference to that 1974 book where the footnote of the footnote clarifies what the footnote of the footnote of the 1973 version didn’t clarify.
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Artists, when they are invited to speak, usually think that their audience wants the artist to act as if they didn’t care about them, but of course artists care, and their audiences- well, their audiences as usually are other artists who are respectful enough but what they really want is not to be an audience but to be the artist who is speaking.
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So it is very painful for me to say this, but the truth is that in this post-post-modern world we all are confused about when to speak and when to listen. As a result of this, we are both unprofessional speakers and unprofessional audiences.
This spells slight doom, the temporary boredom we all have to live through every time we attend a lecture. We don’t even know why we do it.But it shouldn’t be that way.
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Lectures could be like sex. They could be like the seduction of love, like the erotic dance or the magic act or the psychic séance or the hypnotic session. All it takes is for the speaker to find a way to talk to each one of the persons in the room as if it were a one-to-one conversation, an audience whisperer.
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So by all means then let’s then do variations on an audience, or rather, on this non-audience. I will talk not to all of you, but to each of you. For this exercise I will assume that, amongst the group here there is at least one person of the following sort:
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1.Theorists.That is public intellectuals, post-structuralist scholars, downtown east village, readers of October magazine.
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2.Chelseaspeakers. Uber-professional art speakers, curators, consultants, critics.
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3.Grant-writers and administrators working for non-profit organizations and the U.S. government and the Department of Education or School Board.
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4.‘Show-me-the-money’ speakers, no-nonsense, uncomplicated,like when we talk about art late at an afterparty after a fewdrinks.
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Now that we have established the four audiences that I will be addressing,I will now repeat my introduction in audience 1 style:
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The construct ofthe spectator as redefined today by
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post-technological networks reunites a number of given implications that, upon close examination,
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revealsociety
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– and its involutionary transformation-
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as a product of a demystified late capitalist model without centers and reformulated contents.
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The involution of cultural communication into a system of seemingly
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original producers of knowledge as opposed to receivers creates a different
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activity universe that contrasts with the deflection of speech, a seemingly anti-political task of horizontal results.
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Where one searches for the hidden receiver finds itself the manifested materialization of parallel mimetic producers. It is the fabrication of the plot of the content,
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the substance of normative principles of inclusion of concepts, that varies
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only in stylistic practices of scientific postmodernity,
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usually not self-identified as such but actively embracing a regiment of exclusionary concept definitions
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within a well-founded domain of references
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visible only to a reduced agents of the operation.
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Audience 2 form:
The notion of audience has been redefined today by post-technological networks.
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Cultural producers today produce works that critique western notions of collective spectatorship and propose new critical models.
Notions of performance are incorporated in this new critique, resulting in innovative explorations that operate in the realm of conceptual art in various formats.
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The viewer becomes an active participant in the work, which explores notions of viewers becoming active participants.
The work becomes an active participant in the viewer, which is an exploration of notions of viewers.
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These works are conceptual narratives that question a variety of concepts, including the way in which spectators receive information in a post-modern world. These practices thus become explorations of conceptual information of notions of participants that participate in notions of information of conceptual explorations.
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In other words, in audience 3 form:
Audiences in our global world today face the challenges and the opportunities that come along with the emerging forms of expression.
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In this multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary society there are multiple voices which reflect our diverse culture and that are important to support. In some cases, these voices will challenge the viewer to reflect on important issues we all face, but they all reflect the feelings and thoughts of others and are representative of the diversity of original community voices that we all should strive to support. We only face as a society the challenge to expand our long-term partnerships and advisory support to those who have an important message to convey to their constituents, building enduring foundations for community partnerships with real solutions. By acting together, we can overcome the obstacles that for too long have prevented real change on the critical issues that audiences face in art and life, fulfilling the long objective of change , creativity and achievement for the generations to come.
Audience 4 form
I mean its like sometimes because you are online so much and you get to like get to do all this like blogs and photoshop and movies and stuff its like today everything is so easy to do so why do we need anyone else doing it but us, like today things maybe have become decadent or somethingwhen you really think about it its really amazing like everything can mean anything because anyone can do whatever. I mean like today the world and like,culture has become a place where we all talk about ourselves and then it like makes everything look the same because no one seems to be listening or something. I mean that’s cool, but it’s like if I am talking and you are talking and he is talking and then if we just talk in different ways that doesn’t mean we are saying different things if you know what I am saying. Its like that is how its done today when we just say what we have to say and we know whywe say it and we know what you or are going to say so what’s the point of even saying it, but the point that there is no point is maybe the point.
And now, to merge these styles, we will arrive to patch together the choir of art world voices.You can call it an audience fugue.
The construct ofthe spectator as redefined today by post-technological networks reunites a number of given implications that, upon close examination, I mean its like sometimes because you are online so much and you get to like get to do all this like, audiences in our global world today face the challenges and the opportunities that come along with the emerging forms of expression. The notion of audience has been redefined today by post-technological networks – and its involutionary transformation- as a product of a demystified late capitalist model without centers and reformulated contents. The involution of cultural communication into a system of seemingly original producers of knowledge its like today everything is so easy to do so why do we need anyone else doing it but us, In this multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary society Cultural producers today produce works that critique western notions of collective spectatorship as opposed to receivers creates a different activity universe that contrasts with the deflection of speech, blogs and photoshop and movies and stuff, like
there are multiple voices which reflect our diverse culture and that are important to support, today things maybe have become decadent or somethingwhen you really think about it its really amazing like a seemingly anti-political task of horizontal results. In some cases, these voices will challenge the viewer to reflect on important issues we all face, where one searches for the hidden receiver finds itself the manifested materialization of parallel mimetic producers but they all reflect the feelings and thoughts of others and are representative of the diversity of original community voices that we all should strive to support, I mean everything can mean anything because anyone can do whatever. It is the fabrication of the plot of the content, I mean like today the world and like, the substance of normative principles of inclusion of concepts, that we only face as a society the challenge to expand our long-term partnerships and advisory support to those who have an important message to convey to their constituents, These works are conceptual narratives that question a variety of concepts, where we all talk about ourselves and then it like makes everything look the same because no one seems to be listening or something. By acting together, we can overcome the obstacles that for too long have prevented real change on the critical issues that audiences face in art and life, only in stylistic practices of scientific postmodernity, I mean that’s cool, but it’s like if I am talking and you are talking and he is talking and then if we just talk in different ways that doesn’t mean we are saying different things, like These practices thus become explorations of conceptual information of notions of participants, building enduring foundations for community partnerships with real solutions, usually not self-identified as such but actively embracing a regiment of exclusionary definitions that participate in notions of information of conceptual explorations, if you know what I am saying,including the way in which spectators receive information in a post-modern world, and we know whywe say it and we know what you or are going to say so what’s the point of even saying it, within a well-founded domain of references visible only to a reduced agents of the operation, fulfilling the long objective of change , creativity and achievement for the generations to come, an exploration of notions of viewers, Its like that is how its done today when we just say what we have to say but the point that there is no point is maybe the point.
Tags: Audience Design, Education, Performance lectures, Sociology of art, Style-Shifting, The art worl