User:Max Dovey/Reading Writing Research Methodologies/liveness&mediation

Liveness / mediation / Re-enactment

Live as Aura

Liveness is no longer bound by physical or temporal parameters, but defined by experience. Ever since the development of sound recording or telephony live became an experience that could be mediated. Before recording technologies everything was just live, there would be no reason to describe it as live because the only form of spoken communication was face to face and within the same temporal and physical space. Liveness is the term given to the power or nature of the experience. The power of live resides in the experience of it happening. We can define liveness to be an aura , a physiological sensation that humans strive for. It is an authentic experience like Walter Benjamin's description of the 'Aura being tied to its presence' when he describes performing adaptations of Macbeth.

The aura which, on the stage, emanates from Macbeth, cannot be separated for the spectators from that of the actor. However, the singularity of the shot in the studio is that the camera is substituted for the public. Consequently, the aura that envelops the actor vanishes, and with it the aura of the figure he portrays.

If we can apply the relation between the original painting and the effects of mechanical reproduction to the live moment and its technological mediation. Communicating with mobile devices, video streaming and instant messaging are all technological mediations that attempt to recreate the aura of live. As soon as the moment is mediated through technology (e.g. not within the same physical space) the live aura becomes poisoned with the taste of mechanical reproduction, delays, echos, feedback etc.

When live performance is within the same metaphysical realm, there is a collective negotiation. All the performances at Radiocalling perform the construct, the foley, the fraudness that is involved in creating the illusion of immersion. As soon as it becomes mediated there are techniques that create the illusion of real time , or live encounters. cam rips.

Live sells "Recorded Live" is a paradoxical term. We begin escaping the temporal dimension that create the live experience and enter into the realm of reproduction. "Recorded live" was added to musical records , the importance of this record capturing a live performance. The aura being captured, mass produced and sold. Live is key to Television companies would pre-record things 'as if' life for a video recording that would be put onto tape and shown much later. The market value of live , live as commodity in entertainment culture.

Live Technology The recreation of live is also key aspect for the communicaton and tech sector, faster response times provide near real - time interactions. The first record played the listener throught they were in the same room. Telephony - quick response time, only audio forms a whole new set of rules and relations that are adhered to over the telephone. General computation has made response times faster and programmers strive to create near real time interactions with humans and machines. The speed of processors data transfer and general computing power have made communications happen with little latency and high speed.

In 2014 I can video call someone in New Zealand - sending x amount of mbs per second with only 0.4 seconds latency. The near live interaction is almost there. video streaming. constraints made from technological capabilities.

mediating the now news feeds continually updating The guardian live updates blog, electronic mobs self govern society, auto-critiscm. buzzed, web 2.0. news feeds, the present constantly being captured. Joel Holmberg - news feeds auto refreshing http://joelholmberg.com/files/newswebsites1.mov The structure of twitter, buzzfeeds and rss creates an interface where the user is always late, in the real time realm you are always updating or refreshing to get something that just happened. This is the new now, the constant retrieval of information that as soon as it gets to you becomes archive / redundant information. We are chasing the shared moment but all these services are a delayed representation of an event. We chase them for the live aura 'feeling connected' shared precedes over different physical and temporal areas. The same selling point of live is used in the way we consume media through technological devices. We want to be connected to the actuality , to the source, to share the experience simultaneously with overs.

PresentShock ‘Everything we have lived and everyone we have met has been compressed into a virtual now’

representation in real time…. The speed of communication causes human error, no time to forgive, reflect of forget. email accidents, mistaken identity of Boston Bomber etc. How does a media event get staged and consumed through real time technologies. now the media representation circulates and feeds within the action, but there used to be a distance between the event and representation. The live footage from the olympic hostage http://www.christophdraeger.com/categories/data/categories/03_Installations/01_Black%20September The dissolution of space and time in representation to media coverage to a closed circuit. constant state of becoming , call and response instant feedback means the scripts that present can be instantly performed.

performance and authenticity permanence is immediate without mediation. can we talk about something that is not mediated because there is plenty of visual codes in immediate interaction. There is always some code mediating meaning. ITs nomena - its the thing in itself, once you talk about it become phenomena Lacan takes Kants notion nomena and phenomena as the real and the symbolic

Henri Bergson - speaking against cinema as a representation of time. false representation of time. Deleuze cinema books are based on Bergson's ideas. refs Art in the age of mechanical reproduction. present shock - Rushkoff Jean Baudrillard 'the ecstasy of communication' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll_-_ngu4Gg - when the microchips are down.