Exploring cyberspace

I've recently been researching cyberspace and the possibilities of performing within the "virtual" world of Second Life. Whilst becoming entrenched in a pile of books and journals, I started to ask how 'real' is digital reality? I came across a very interesting theory by Slavoj Zizek about the 'reality' of cybersex. If sexual contact is already phantasmic in the sense that the body of the other person serves merely as a vessel onto which we project our sexual desires, then cybersex surely serves the same function making it as real as any other kind of sexual contact.

This got my trail of thought going... If we act/ perform/ create in real-time in a different digital reality, then it is no less real than the physical or biological which we pin the word 'real' on to. I started to resent using the words 'real' and 'virtual' to distinguish between the physical world and Second Life.

However, I am slightly concerned that doing away with the physical body would strip us of the ability to subconciously perform identities through our body. For example, an embodied, engendered feminist performance, or performing culture through our physicality. Is it lost? Is creating new and multiple online identities immoral or does it create a new way of 'interfacing' with yourself?

And how do we define 'liveness'- the essence of performance art? Does it mean live-through-presence, or does it represent live-through-time-based-moments? I feel it could (and has already) start to divide performance artists in what they feel is essential to this umbrella term.

There are two sides of the debate- where a move towards 'body as information' represents a fear and loathing of the weak, mortal body and a quest to embed ourselves in the machine versus the fear of the omnipotence of the machine. But perhaps by representing our 'imagined selves' we do simulate a part of what we try to capture on stage- always playing this 'imagined other' who we never really are.

Second Life is relatively new in the performance art world, and I think its potential will be realised very soon. It will be interesting how it moves forward, and what that means in bringing its conciousness to the public forum.

I woke up today, and nothing happened

I think I finally understand the concept of work never being finished. After writing out a script, I realised that parts of it continue the concepts only touched on in "Born, Never Asked" (a full length play for stage I wrote), and I finally realised that all those words I have been writing were meant to be spoken aloud. What I have been missing is the cathartic experience of performing; to create something intensely personal so that you and the audience share a powerful moment. I realised this after the Stacy Makishi workshop when I wrote a very intense piece that I almost didn't want to share, but I'm glad I did because I felt the mood just go. It lifted as soon as the piece had finished, and I experienced a true catharsis that was not forced or nervous.

I think the overwhelming statement I am making is the abscence of music, perhaps only with the sound of ticking (this is to be decided). This incorporates my wish to incorporate the use of silences, and placing more importance on the words. In a sense, I wish I had used this piece to be marked on "writing", but I am happy with the way ther script is fleshing out.

In content, it appears to be an analysis of an existential view of time; that it only exists as long as we are living in it, incorporated with the emptiness and loneliness of self exploration. Are events in our lives really happening? Or can everything be reduced to nothing? Is anything really happening? I think the text also ties in with the postmodernist view of it being the "end of history"; there are no more moments or big events anymore. Also, it talks about the future as a concept. This is not a new idea, but more the idea that every step we take, we step into the future, even though the future is not a place but a process. The concept of destiny assumes that the future is an "A to B" process, whereas free will would determine it is an unknown circumstance. That is not to say I agree with the latter, but it's certainly interesting to look at it that way, especially when we have phrases in common usage such as "It was his time" or "Must be fate".

I also really like the play on "nothing is happening", where I say "And I said to myself..." and I say nothing. Because nothing is happening I have nothing to say or think.

I have also made this piece intensely personal. I can see it's very dark and exposing, but to create that catharsis, I feel I need to gouge my feelings out to get the real truth and integrity of emotion that this piece needs. I have to also add that Stacey Makishi has given me the courage to do what Mem Morrison was trying to acheive; that intensely personal work that hopefully takes me and the audience on a journey.

Thinking about self in relation to Lacan, I think my mediatized self is my "mirrored" self; more narcissitic, unrealistic, while my stage self represents the Other. I was relating it back to previous performances and "Astariel" (which is my usual stagename under which I have performed music, and who I think I was trying to evoke in my last performance) is that mirrored self. A performative self who is much bigger than me; almost a superego. I think this piece concentrates on the middle ground of the "ego"; a relation between intense personal desires and thoughts and the inability to run away from the natural order of things.

I'm very much looking forward to rehearsing; I want to be extremely intense in this piece; to provide the discomfort of Kane and the emotional detatchment and analysis of Crimp.

Throwing Laurie Out the Window

So after a disastrous presentation where nothing seemed to go right, I decided that this intervention is probably where I leave Ms. Anderson behind to try and gouge something out of my own voice. I have instead turned to my writing heroes like Martin Crimp, Sarah Kane and Edward Bond for inspiration, and my own theatrical writings to go to the dark place.

I make it sound ominous, but what I mean is I really want to spill my guts this time. This time, I'm looking at the stage as a canvas for an emotion. As Helen has said, I'm trying to think with singularity this time, or to have a more streamlined piece. I keep having one thought which is "I have one big clock, and it just keeps ticking" with the constant ticking of a clock. I'm reminded very much of the Glass Man from the film "Amelie", who filmed the clock outside his window so he could always see what the time was.

Also from the makishi workshops, I realised how cathartic it could be to say the words out loud that you keep. especially in front of an audience; it gives them a sense of purpose, more meaning.

With this very much in mind, I started with the initial idea of trying to convey what it was like to work the nightshift; isolation, tiredness, insomnia. And so this time I started using the workshops more efficiently and workshopped this particular material with Stacy Makishi on the 21st of November. When it came to doing the writing exercises, I was very interested that I wrote some answering machine messages from myself. From there, I started making links with Lacan's sense of "the mirror stage" and "the Other". Could there be interplay between me and a mediatized self? A technological self? A self that existed in the past juxtaposed with a self that exists now? By producing a mediatized self and a live self, I will be physically representing both the 'Real' and the 'Imaginary' parts of the ego.

In terms of 'liveness', this also means that I will be existing in the past and in the present onstage. I find this quite interesting, even though it would mean a lot of dialogue would be pre-recorded. But perhaps it is the interplay that would be more interesting, or how to use the screen to interact with me and the audience.

This has been heavy in my mind for the past couple of days now. I also thought about Cindy Sherman, and how she interprets sense of self in the "Untitled Film Stills" series. Is it possible to make my two selves enitirely different? Should they be?

For the music and movement, I am focussing on stillness, emptiness and the use of ticking working up towards a frenzy.

I think it's hard to go on further without establishing a text, so my next step is to write a provisional script and keep going.