Liveness: Performance in a mediatized culture, Second Edition

223 Pages·2007·0.89 MB·English

by  Philip Auslander

LIVENESS
Reviews of the first edition:
“Wide-ranging and deeply absorbing . . . a first point of reference for anyone
interested in the meaning and prospects of performance in the contemporary
world.” – Steven Connor, Birkbeck College, London
“marvellously rigorous in its intellectual musings” – Dean Wilcox, Theatre
Research International
“even those who approach this text prepared to resist it every step of the way
emerge with a respect for the clarity of every argument Auslander makes.” –
Dorothy Chansky, Modern Drama
Winner of the Joe A. Callaway Prize for the Best Book on Drama and Theatre,
2000.
Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture addresses what may be the single
most important question facing all kinds of performance today. What is the status
of live performance in a culture dominated by mass media?
Since its first appearance, Philip Auslander’s ground-breaking book has helped
to reconfigure a new area of study. Looking at specific instances of live per-
formance such as theatre, rock music, sport, and courtroom testimony, Liveness
offers penetrating insights into media culture, suggesting that media technology
has encroached on live events to the point where many are hardly live at all. In
this new edition, the author thoroughly updates his provocative argument to take
into account new digital and media technologies, and cultural, social, and legal
developments.
In tackling some of the last great shibboleths surrounding the high cultural
status of the live event, this book will continue to shape opinion and to provoke
lively debate on a crucial artistic dilemma: what is live performance and what
can it mean to us now?
Philip Auslander teaches Performance Studies at the Georgia Institute of
Technology, USA. He is author of From Acting to Performance (1997) and Theory
for Performance Studies (2007) and edited Performance: Critical Concepts in
Literary and Cultural Studies (2003).
LIVENESS
Performance in a mediatized culture
Second Edition
Philip Auslander
First published 1999
by Routledge
This edition published 2008
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 1999, 2008 Philip Auslander
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Auslander, Philip, 1956–
Liveness : performance in a mediatized culture/
Philip Auslander. — 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Performing arts—Social aspects. 2. Music—Performance.
3. Trials. I. Title.
PN1590.S6A88 2008
791′.09730904—dc22
2007024809
ISBN 0-203-93813-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0–415–77352–0 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–77353–9 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–93813–5 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–77352–2 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–77353–9 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–93813–3 (ebk)
THIS IS DEDICATED TO THE ONE I LOVE
FOR DEANNA SIRLIN
Why would you make live work in an age of mass communi-
cations? Why work in more or less the only field which still
insists on presence? For artists interested in “the contemporary”
this area of live performance seems like a bit of a backwater. Do
you have something against mass-reproduction? Do you work
from some quaint notion about immediacy and real presence?
I don’t know.
Answer the question.
(Forced Entertainment 1996:87)
Like most art critics, I get my best ideas from television.
(Dave Hickey 1996:43)
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Preface to the second edition xi
1 Introduction: “an orchid in the land of technology” 1
2 Live performance in a mediatized culture 10
Teevee’s playhouse 11
Is it live, or . . .? 24
Against ontology 43
Got live if you want it 63
3 Tryin’ to make it real: live performance, simulation,
and the discourse of authenticity in rock culture 73
Rock culture and the discourse of authenticity 74
Seeing is believing 85
I want my MTV 97
Panic Clapton 107
4 Legally live: law, performance, memory 128
Teevee’s courthouse, or the resistible rise of the videotape
trial 130
You don’t own me: performance as intellectual property 147
The Gollum problem 168
Law and remembrance 176
5 Conclusion 183
Bibliography 188
Index 201
vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Talia Rodgers for her enthusiasm and unflagging
support of this project from the moment I first told her about it over a
modest dinner in Philadelphia in 1993 to my suggestion in 2006 that it
might be time for a second edition. I would also like to thank Minh Ha
Duong for shepherding the second edition and Maria Carter, my research
and editorial assistant.
The material of this book has been the basis for numerous papers and
presentations over a period that has now lasted for a decade and a half.
I want to thank all the organizers of all the conferences, panels, and
public lectures who provided me with platforms. The responses I got on
all occasions were stimulating and instructive; the influence of those
occasions and audiences is reflected here.
Many colleagues, both inside and outside the academy, made signifi-
cant contributions to the ideas expressed here and I thank them all. I also
wish to thank my students at both the Georgia Institute of Technology
and the University of Georgia for participating in courses whose
materials derived in whole or part from my continuing obsession with
liveness. Your presence is reflected here more than you know.
And thanks to Evie Sirlin, Laci Reed-Sirlin, and Bowie Auslander and
Nico Sirlin, whose live and lively presences made the work on this book
from its inception to the present so much more pleasant.
Parts of Chapters 2 and 3 appeared in “Liveness: performance and the
anxiety of simulation,” in Performance and Cultural Politics, edited by Elin
Diamond (London and New York: Routledge, 1996). Other parts of
Chapter 2 were published in “Against ontology: making distinctions
between the live and the mediatized,” Performance Research, 2, 3 (1997);
“Live from cyberspace, or, I was sitting at my computer this guy appeared
he thought I was a bot,” Performing Arts Journal, 24, 1 (2002); “No-shows:
the headcount from the NEA,” TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies,
49 (2005); and “The performativity of performance art documentation,”
ix