sound, image, text

Lecture Nine

Wed Sept 16, 2008

Home SpectatorsCanned Laughter

Final Relaxation

Audience

• Individual or collective experience of:

– Artifacts / artworks (eg songs, paintings, films etc) – Performance / live experience (theatrical or musical), – Nature (eg bird watching, a sunset)– Sport / spectacle– media (radio, TV, internet etc)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audience

• Species of Audience: listeners, viewers, audiovisual spectators, patrons, congregation, students, followers, observers etc

Engagement

• Every work or experience has the potential for multiple levels of engagement. The same work may have many audiences. A popular TV show, for example, may have as its audience:

– the studio audience – the home viewers– people who vote for a contestant– online audience (extended or interactive engagement)– the critic or commentator– non-viewers who hear the show referred to in conversation

Audience / Critic

• The relationship between audience as consumer / spectator and audience as producer / spectacle can be extremely fluid.

• Review / Criticism is a key way in which audiences actively shape the perception of work – and generate new work with new audiences….

• Example: Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe.Example: Slavoj Zizek – Perverts Guide to Cinema

Zero Punctuation

• Zero Punctuation is the creation of Yahtzee, a British-born, currently Australian-based writer and gamer with a sweet hat and a chip on his shoulder. When he isn't talking very fast into a headset microphone he also designs freeware adventure games and writes the back page column for PC Gamer. His personal site is here.

Participation / Intervention

• It is generally accepted that an audience participates in the experience of a work.

• This participation may be passive, where the audience has no direct impact on the outcome of the event. Examples include: classical music concert, cinema, looking at a painting..

• Active participation implies the audience has some impact on the event and through their actions may change the course of the work or the experience of the work. Examples include: performance art, computer games, interactive TV

• Example: The Interventions of Peter Hore

Projected Audiences / Canned Laughter

“when, in the evening, I come home, too exhausted to engage in a meaningful activity, I just press the TV button and watch Cheers, Friends, or another series; even if I do not laugh, but simply stare at the screen, tired after a hard days work, I nonetheless feel relieved after the show - it is as if the TV-screen was literally laughing at my place, instead of meÉ Before one gets used to "canned laughter," there is nonetheless usually a brief period of uneasiness: the first reaction to it is one of a shock, since it is difficult to accept that the machine out there can "laugh for me," there is something inherently obscene in this phenomenon. However, with time, one grows accustomed to it and the phenomenon is experienced as "natural.") This is what is so unsettling about the "canned laughter": my most intimate feelings can be radically externalized, I can literally "laugh and cry through another." - Will You Laugh for Me, Please by Slavoj Zizek

Reflected Audiences

• In audiovisual, media, the audience may be represented: – verbally eg a narrator or character speaking directly to the

audience– aurally eg sounds of crowds cheering – visually eg visual montage of crowd shots or characters

witnessing a performance.

• In some cases the representation of the audience allows the listener/ viewer to identify more closely with the experience of the character.

• In others cases it may place the listener in context of the action or event thereby enhancing the authenticity of the experience

• Ben Russell – Black and White Trypps #3

Fourth Wall

• The fourth wall refers to the imaginary and invisible boundary that separates the audience and the stage in performance. The audience witnesses the actions of the performance but the audience is not acknowledged as being present in the world of the play.

• Contemporary theatre and live performance often ‘break’ the fourth wall. Here actors/ performers directly acknowledge the presence of the audience, for example by addressing them directly, asking questions, inviting audience interaction etc

Hypnotized Audience / Humour

• specific types of humour, such as jokes, satire, irony etc, rely on a subtle understanding of language or context for effect.

• The effectiveness of humour also relies on a understanding of difference.

• • Humour often works with genre conventions and

audience expectations.

• Example: Final Relaxation by the Golding Institute.

Note: language warning and adult themes