Week 1 Post

I think I got most of my discussion about The Fire and the Rain and concerns about the inconsistency of the play and, frankly, the writing. This is a smaller complaint but even some of the lines seem weak. The very first line threw me off. Craft 101 says you don’t have characters repeat themselves, especially at the beginning of the work. But I did want to mention Vishakha’s moment in the play after Paravasu kills his father. Paravasu is telling Arvasu to take responsibility for their father’s death. During this, Vishakha is blatantly telling Arvasu to defy his brother and her husband. I thought that was a really strong moment for Vishakha and an interesting commentary on gender relations. I think the scene is somewhat problematic since Vishakha has already expressed her wish to die. Since she has no problem with dying, she would have no problem with defying her husband because what is the worst thing he could do but kill her? I feel that she wouldn’t have as willing to stand up for herself and Arvasu if she did not already know that Paravasu was not going to kill her. At least, not immediately. I think that is now all have to say about the play.

Since we didn’t get around to discussing the first chapter of Liveness, I thought I would spend most of my blog post with the book. Right now, I’m kind of skeptical about this book. I have a hard time jumping into the arguments about new media or art or whatever it may be. Every time new technology comes along one side says it is going to be the best thing to ever happen and take over all other art forms while the other side says it’s inferior but inevitably will ruin all the other art forms. Usually either side is wrong. The Soviets were big into this when they first started making silent film. Eisenstien and other talked about how this was the new form of art and had very specific details and rules about how film should be used (somewhat like Lars Von Trier’s Dogma 95 which only took him a few years to abandon) and when sound started to be incorporated all the film directors mourned the end of cinema. Here Auslander seems to be doing something of both. At least in the first chapter, he seems to be dismissing some aspects of our dominate culture while holding onto what he perceives to be “the future”. And by this I’m referring to his dismissal of television as a simulacrum of culture while seeming to embrace how technology will enhance performance in the near future.

Not only did his somewhat bombastic approach make question this book but also his use of theorist. First, Susan Sontag was not stating some philosophical approach to theater and art but was simply stating a fact. While you can film a play to make a film, you cannot play a film to make a play. I feel like he takes this quote largely out of context to prove his point. But, in the end, this is simply a statement about our limits in technology. Maybe in the future we will be able to “play a film”. Second, his use of Baudrillard is basic at best and possibly intentionally misleading. He doesn’t do nearly a good enough job explaining Baudrillard’s theories of culture and simulation. He keeps alluding to the rock music chapter, but he needs to bring up Baudrillard’s discussion of LA and Disneyland to really make his point. I don’t have my Baudrillard on me, but the basic idea is that there are four stages of simulation. The first is the real culture. Rites, rituals, and habits that have true meaning for true believers. The second is level follows these rites, rituals, etc. but they are merely taking part of the action and do not believe or understand the actions. The third level is an abstraction of the second. The rites and rituals have changed in order for people separated from the first level to find meaning in the processes they are taking place in. The fourth level is full on simulacrum having nothing to do with the actuality of the first level. That really isn’t a great explanation either, but it’s a better effort than Ausalander's.