On ebay I am mandymerr with a feedback rating of 698. I have purple star beside my user ID to verify my standing (at a feedback rating of 1000 my star becomes red). I look like thousands of other ebay members. I am the average casual user not a “power seller” or a member with a store front. As I write this description of myself on ebay I am struck by the lingo that is ebay specific. I use these ebay specific words to show I am involved in the community. I am saying I have a role and I am performing in the ebay world.
In many ways on-line performance is much more liberating and freeing than the “real” world performances. In the virtual world one is not tied to their body. They are no one and everyone all at once. On ebay I can come across as a professional seller or as an aggressive loan shark demanding payment. I can be wheelin’ and dealin’ buyer looking for a good price. Actually, I can be all these at once. I can play many roles and I am able to sustain multiple roles because all transactions are private. I find that I am more forceful in my ebay life than I am in the real world. On ebay I am willing to pursue deadbeat bidders, where as I would not act in such a drastic manner in real life. The thing is I am anonymous and more importantly the communication is not face to face. I am more willing to be more extreme in my behavior because there are no (or very few) real life repercussions i.e. I can’t get beat up for bugging a non-paying bidder.
For me the real question about on-line performance becomes - are we allowed more freedom to be “ourselves” in the online world? If so then, is it the lack of physicality that creates this sense of freedom. It seems that someplace like ebay is more like the real world than other online environments, like Simms or Second Life . Ebay is tied to the real world in that the users are buying and selling real items with real money. It is a place for some people to make a living or get cheap goods. It is more real because it has direct consequences for users in their actual life.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Schechner's Cat
I just finished reading chapter four of Performance Studies in which author Richard Schechner discusses the concept of play in the context of performance and beyond. For me it was a little far beyond in some places. As it got into quantum mechanics, the Uncertainty Principle and multiple universes, I failed to see the relationship to performance, at first. That is not to say that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy those pages. Initially, I was just not sure Schechner could connect the seemingly mysterious events that occur only at a subatomic level to culture, society or performance. It seems the cultural phenomenon Derrida describes is a reaction to the strict cultural formulas and artifices that dominated Western thought in the early part of the 20th century. But I don’t see anything that relates to Heisenberg or Schroedinger’s cat. Or is there?
As I think this all through, I do began see a relationship between the Schroedinger’s cat metaphor and performance theory, particularly the observer’s role in the paradox. Briefly and way oversimplified, here is my understanding of the Schroedinger’s cat paradox: Schroedinger proposed a scenario with a cat in a sealed box, where the cat's life or death was analogous to the positive or negative state of a subatomic particle. According to Schroedinger, there is a paradox which implies that the cat (or subatomic particle) remains both alive and dead until the box is opened. Until an observer is present and physically observes the cat (or subatomic particle), the cat/particle is both dead and alive (positive and negatively charged). This can be compared to performance and the theatre in the sense that until the play is actually performed and comes to life, it only exists in a state of flux on the page. The existence of a live audience is what makes it performance. When a group of people acknowledge that it is performance and legitimize it by seeing it as such, it becomes a real performance, just as the observer makes the cat dead or alive.
As I think this all through, I do began see a relationship between the Schroedinger’s cat metaphor and performance theory, particularly the observer’s role in the paradox. Briefly and way oversimplified, here is my understanding of the Schroedinger’s cat paradox: Schroedinger proposed a scenario with a cat in a sealed box, where the cat's life or death was analogous to the positive or negative state of a subatomic particle. According to Schroedinger, there is a paradox which implies that the cat (or subatomic particle) remains both alive and dead until the box is opened. Until an observer is present and physically observes the cat (or subatomic particle), the cat/particle is both dead and alive (positive and negatively charged). This can be compared to performance and the theatre in the sense that until the play is actually performed and comes to life, it only exists in a state of flux on the page. The existence of a live audience is what makes it performance. When a group of people acknowledge that it is performance and legitimize it by seeing it as such, it becomes a real performance, just as the observer makes the cat dead or alive.
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