Audiences : a sociological theory of performance and imagination
by Abercrombie, Nicholas.
---Performance----
p.39:
1.The ifference between IRP and SPP is the redefinition of what an audience is and what it does.
2.three types: Simple audience,mass audience,diffused audience
3.IRP is suitable for the analysis of simple audience and mass audience. SPP is at home with the diffused audience.
p.40:
1.Turner's definition of "performance"(1982)
p.41:
1.All performance involve a degree of ceremony and ritual.
2.all performance will be invested with a sense of the scared and extraordinary. ex. religion worship, political meeting(transcend everyday life).
3."distance(physical and social)" between A and P is the qualities of performance.(social distance is more important.p.41)
p.42:
1.not all performances are held in public. The advent of the mass media privatizs performance. ex. watching TV at home.
2.peformance-->performance-->audience (because different time and place)
3.spliced together to make a whole(modern)
4.Mass Media performances are therefore increasingly privated.(p.43)
p.43:
1.performances are seen as localized and globalized. ex. "live"
2.language and culture decide the property performance: regional, national, global.
3. audience's attention is related to involvement; and involvement is related to effect. (compare watching a movie in a theatre and at home-TV)
------The simple audience------
p.44:
1.Performance to simple audience are noticed.
2.Preparation is important in both Performers(rehearsal, the construction of performance space) and Audience(making arrangements to go, dressing).
3.Simple audiences participate in performance events which have a substantial ceremonial or scared quality.
4.But first and foremost it is a ceremony.(p.45)
p.45:
1.ancient time: festivals, worship; nowaday: sport event.
p.46:
1.how it happens? The move form theatre to ritual happens when the audience is transformed from a collection of separate individuals into a group or congregation of participants.
2.ritualistic performances are liminal in order to constitute a threshold between secular living and scared living.
p.47:
1.the social distance between performer and audience happens in theatre, political and sport events...(but ealier, the relationship between A and P was intimate(williams,1970))
2.Burns: distance starts in England "full-time theatre" in 1576.
p.48:
1.physical separation is reinforced by a sense of ritual distance. ex. In a funeral, family is more close to the minister than other mourners.
2.it can be suggested that as simple audience develop over time, ststus differences tend to become replaced by differences based more cebtrally on privce alone. ex. watching a Yankee's game, the front seats are more expensive.
3.The social separation of performaers and audiences is reinforced by the manner in which the former inhabit an extra-mundane world. ex.a proud movie star.
p.49:
1.Critcher:four styles of hero- traditional/ located, transitional/ mobile, incorporated/ em-bourgeoised, superstar/ dislocated.
p.50:
1.the creation of apparent audience passivity effects the distance between A and P.
p.51:
1.a social contract in entered into by the audience. ex. buying a ticket means you have to set on your permited seat.
2.Kershaw: physical arrangements and conventions of theatre imply a certain fixity for the audience.
p.51-52:
1.Aktinson: do what you should do in a appropriate condition. (clapping in a symphony)
2.specal means may be adopted to ensure that an audience behaves as one body.(thousands of individuals to join in and act as one body)
p.54:
1.the performance conventions for simple audience demand high attention.
p.55:
1.simple audience spaces can themselves be treated as scared.
2.performance spaces for simple audience are invariable public.
p.56:
1.the essence of porfermance is to creat a dissident disorder against the order of conventional and authoritative.
2.Avant-grade theatre has diferent thought, they wish to have an active and participant audience to break down the barries.
3.Boal: step--01> free people seeing in the open air. 02> separating actors from spectators. 03> separated the protagonists from the mass."The coercive indoctrination began!"
p.57:
1."Performance art" trys to break down the barries, too, which suggests that performance is as much on "spectacle" as it is on "text."
p.57: conclusion of simple audience
1.communication is direct.
2.the performance is designated (local place).
3.high degree of ceremony
4.the performance is public
5.distance is high
6.attention is high
------Mass Audience-----
p.57:
1.Pre-modern societies largely operated with simple audience. It is often argued that advent of mass communications has removed the support for simple audience performances. (film ruined the theatre)
2.Author disagree with point 1.(p.58)
p.58: what is mass audience comparing to simple audience===>difference
1.Mass audience events do not involve spatial localization.
2.the communication is not so direct.
3.experience is more of an everyday one and is not the same way with ceremony.
4.less attention
5.is typically received in private rather than in public.
6.there is even GREATER social and physical distance between A and P.
p.58: what is mass audience comparing to simple audience===>in common
1.both depend on performance
2.both involve a communication between producers and consumers
3.both flow into another(can be dependent on one another) and parasitic on one another.
p.59-60:what mass audience era has changed
1.performers had to moderatetheir performance. street actors might perform well on TV.
2.the performance in a large sense has also to be transformed in the moment from simple to mass audience.
2-1.actors are only performing fragmets but not for a complete piece.
2-2.Movie performance is "built" but "shot."
2-3.the representation of a character may not be the work of a single actor.(a stand-in actor)
3.Eisenberg's notion of recorded of music: only live recordings record an event; studio recordings record nothing!
4.Coodwin1992:three key new tecnologies: sampler, the sequencer, MIDI(P.60-61)
p.62:
1.creation of the mass media alter the notion of performance.
2.In the modern mass media industries, the high division of labour, have given paricular prominence to non-performance of a particular kind.
p.63:
1.simple performances are immediate- proformer and audiences are physically present at the same time.
2.Mass media performances are mediated.
p.64:
1.from the type face-to-face to able to act for others who are absent or in distant locales.
2.Thompson distiguishes three types of social interaction:01>face-to-face interaction(demands co-presence). 02>mediated interaction(use some technical medium: stretched across space and time; no body language; restricts symbolic cues). 03>mediated quasi-interaction(the same as 02; orientated to a potential indefinite of number of participants; it is a one-way traffic).
p.65:
1.social distance is more pronounced.(separation)
2.Tudor's four modes of star-audience relationship: 01>Emotional affinity(loose attachment to the star). 02>audience places hiself in the position of star(identifies so powerfully). 03>audience imitates star(adopts the hair style, dressing style). 04>merge with the star.
p.66: how imagination works
1.Identification-in-imagination only works through difference and distance.
2.the relationship between star and audience is also articulated through the recognition of an immutable difference between star and spectator(we like to be, but knew we never could!)
3.simple audience attend in localized sapce; mass audience attend in global spaces and sometime localized(depends on when and where the performance take place).
p.67:
1.the domestication and privatiztion of mass media audience do deprive performances of the ritualistic quality.
2.the greater ceremonial quality, the great attention=>media become background for everyday life. it earns less, lower attention. but accuratly saying, mass audience move in and out of attention.(watch TV all day, but just pay attention on the programme you like)
-------Diffused Audience----
p.68:
1.definition of Diffused Audience: everyone becomes an audience all the time(is constitutive基本的 of everyday life).
p.69-70: notions of Diffused Audience:different levels of processes operating
p.69:
1.first & second:people spend a lot of time in comsumption of mass media in the home and public==>means media are actually constitutive of everyday life.
p.70:
1.our sense of security is maintained by the familiar routines of daily life, by our commonsense understandings and practical knowledge.
2.everyday life is organized by time. A sense of security is given by the routines that occur at more or less fixed times.(go to bed, get up-time==>becoming a "habit" makes people fell secure)
p.70:
1.third: via "the performative society."(to be distinguished from theatre)
p.71:
1..The performative society in which human transactions are complexly structured through the growing use of performative modes and frames.
p.72:
1.innocent events(protestation parade) become turned into performances seeing themselves as performers.(protester try to perform what media wants)
2.performative society can be seen in an tendency to see all art as performance.
3.performances as discrete events.(the broad spectrum of performance includes a whole variety of activity in a whole variety of fields)
p.72-73:
1.fourth:more fundamental level the diffused audience experience may be characterized by the virtual invisibility of performance.(unaware performance; we are audiences and performer at the same time)==>argue: perforance is not a discrete event.
p.73:
1.Human society itself is theatre.
2.Sennett:the notion of society as theatre serve three 'constant moral purposes.' 01>illusion and delusion become intrinsic issues in social life. 02>human nature becomes detached from social action. 03>the images of theatrum mundi are pictures of the art people exercise in ordinary life(art of acting).
p.74:
1.diverge role-playing or social-life-as-theatre into two respects: 01>specific to comtemporary society than society in general. 02>because mass communication provide an important resource for everyday performance.
p.75:
1.the difference between simple&mass audience and diffused audience is the "elimination of distance.(theare-in-the-street)"
2.enthusiams=>makes distance disappeared
-------------
=============simple=== mass=======diffused
communication== direct==== mediated===fused
local/global===== local===== global======universal
ceremony====== high===== medium====low
public/private=== public==== private=====both
distance======= high===== very high====low
attention====== high===== variable civil==inattention
by Abercrombie, Nicholas.
---Performance----
p.39:
1.The ifference between IRP and SPP is the redefinition of what an audience is and what it does.
2.three types: Simple audience,mass audience,diffused audience
3.IRP is suitable for the analysis of simple audience and mass audience. SPP is at home with the diffused audience.
p.40:
1.Turner's definition of "performance"(1982)
p.41:
1.All performance involve a degree of ceremony and ritual.
2.all performance will be invested with a sense of the scared and extraordinary. ex. religion worship, political meeting(transcend everyday life).
3."distance(physical and social)" between A and P is the qualities of performance.(social distance is more important.p.41)
p.42:
1.not all performances are held in public. The advent of the mass media privatizs performance. ex. watching TV at home.
2.peformance-->performance-->audience (because different time and place)
3.spliced together to make a whole(modern)
4.Mass Media performances are therefore increasingly privated.(p.43)
p.43:
1.performances are seen as localized and globalized. ex. "live"
2.language and culture decide the property performance: regional, national, global.
3. audience's attention is related to involvement; and involvement is related to effect. (compare watching a movie in a theatre and at home-TV)
------The simple audience------
p.44:
1.Performance to simple audience are noticed.
2.Preparation is important in both Performers(rehearsal, the construction of performance space) and Audience(making arrangements to go, dressing).
3.Simple audiences participate in performance events which have a substantial ceremonial or scared quality.
4.But first and foremost it is a ceremony.(p.45)
p.45:
1.ancient time: festivals, worship; nowaday: sport event.
p.46:
1.how it happens? The move form theatre to ritual happens when the audience is transformed from a collection of separate individuals into a group or congregation of participants.
2.ritualistic performances are liminal in order to constitute a threshold between secular living and scared living.
p.47:
1.the social distance between performer and audience happens in theatre, political and sport events...(but ealier, the relationship between A and P was intimate(williams,1970))
2.Burns: distance starts in England "full-time theatre" in 1576.
p.48:
1.physical separation is reinforced by a sense of ritual distance. ex. In a funeral, family is more close to the minister than other mourners.
2.it can be suggested that as simple audience develop over time, ststus differences tend to become replaced by differences based more cebtrally on privce alone. ex. watching a Yankee's game, the front seats are more expensive.
3.The social separation of performaers and audiences is reinforced by the manner in which the former inhabit an extra-mundane world. ex.a proud movie star.
p.49:
1.Critcher:four styles of hero- traditional/ located, transitional/ mobile, incorporated/ em-bourgeoised, superstar/ dislocated.
p.50:
1.the creation of apparent audience passivity effects the distance between A and P.
p.51:
1.a social contract in entered into by the audience. ex. buying a ticket means you have to set on your permited seat.
2.Kershaw: physical arrangements and conventions of theatre imply a certain fixity for the audience.
p.51-52:
1.Aktinson: do what you should do in a appropriate condition. (clapping in a symphony)
2.specal means may be adopted to ensure that an audience behaves as one body.(thousands of individuals to join in and act as one body)
p.54:
1.the performance conventions for simple audience demand high attention.
p.55:
1.simple audience spaces can themselves be treated as scared.
2.performance spaces for simple audience are invariable public.
p.56:
1.the essence of porfermance is to creat a dissident disorder against the order of conventional and authoritative.
2.Avant-grade theatre has diferent thought, they wish to have an active and participant audience to break down the barries.
3.Boal: step--01> free people seeing in the open air. 02> separating actors from spectators. 03> separated the protagonists from the mass."The coercive indoctrination began!"
p.57:
1."Performance art" trys to break down the barries, too, which suggests that performance is as much on "spectacle" as it is on "text."
p.57: conclusion of simple audience
1.communication is direct.
2.the performance is designated (local place).
3.high degree of ceremony
4.the performance is public
5.distance is high
6.attention is high
------Mass Audience-----
p.57:
1.Pre-modern societies largely operated with simple audience. It is often argued that advent of mass communications has removed the support for simple audience performances. (film ruined the theatre)
2.Author disagree with point 1.(p.58)
p.58: what is mass audience comparing to simple audience===>difference
1.Mass audience events do not involve spatial localization.
2.the communication is not so direct.
3.experience is more of an everyday one and is not the same way with ceremony.
4.less attention
5.is typically received in private rather than in public.
6.there is even GREATER social and physical distance between A and P.
p.58: what is mass audience comparing to simple audience===>in common
1.both depend on performance
2.both involve a communication between producers and consumers
3.both flow into another(can be dependent on one another) and parasitic on one another.
p.59-60:what mass audience era has changed
1.performers had to moderatetheir performance. street actors might perform well on TV.
2.the performance in a large sense has also to be transformed in the moment from simple to mass audience.
2-1.actors are only performing fragmets but not for a complete piece.
2-2.Movie performance is "built" but "shot."
2-3.the representation of a character may not be the work of a single actor.(a stand-in actor)
3.Eisenberg's notion of recorded of music: only live recordings record an event; studio recordings record nothing!
4.Coodwin1992:three key new tecnologies: sampler, the sequencer, MIDI(P.60-61)
p.62:
1.creation of the mass media alter the notion of performance.
2.In the modern mass media industries, the high division of labour, have given paricular prominence to non-performance of a particular kind.
p.63:
1.simple performances are immediate- proformer and audiences are physically present at the same time.
2.Mass media performances are mediated.
p.64:
1.from the type face-to-face to able to act for others who are absent or in distant locales.
2.Thompson distiguishes three types of social interaction:01>face-to-face interaction(demands co-presence). 02>mediated interaction(use some technical medium: stretched across space and time; no body language; restricts symbolic cues). 03>mediated quasi-interaction(the same as 02; orientated to a potential indefinite of number of participants; it is a one-way traffic).
p.65:
1.social distance is more pronounced.(separation)
2.Tudor's four modes of star-audience relationship: 01>Emotional affinity(loose attachment to the star). 02>audience places hiself in the position of star(identifies so powerfully). 03>audience imitates star(adopts the hair style, dressing style). 04>merge with the star.
p.66: how imagination works
1.Identification-in-imagination only works through difference and distance.
2.the relationship between star and audience is also articulated through the recognition of an immutable difference between star and spectator(we like to be, but knew we never could!)
3.simple audience attend in localized sapce; mass audience attend in global spaces and sometime localized(depends on when and where the performance take place).
p.67:
1.the domestication and privatiztion of mass media audience do deprive performances of the ritualistic quality.
2.the greater ceremonial quality, the great attention=>media become background for everyday life. it earns less, lower attention. but accuratly saying, mass audience move in and out of attention.(watch TV all day, but just pay attention on the programme you like)
-------Diffused Audience----
p.68:
1.definition of Diffused Audience: everyone becomes an audience all the time(is constitutive基本的 of everyday life).
p.69-70: notions of Diffused Audience:different levels of processes operating
p.69:
1.first & second:people spend a lot of time in comsumption of mass media in the home and public==>means media are actually constitutive of everyday life.
p.70:
1.our sense of security is maintained by the familiar routines of daily life, by our commonsense understandings and practical knowledge.
2.everyday life is organized by time. A sense of security is given by the routines that occur at more or less fixed times.(go to bed, get up-time==>becoming a "habit" makes people fell secure)
p.70:
1.third: via "the performative society."(to be distinguished from theatre)
p.71:
1..The performative society in which human transactions are complexly structured through the growing use of performative modes and frames.
p.72:
1.innocent events(protestation parade) become turned into performances seeing themselves as performers.(protester try to perform what media wants)
2.performative society can be seen in an tendency to see all art as performance.
3.performances as discrete events.(the broad spectrum of performance includes a whole variety of activity in a whole variety of fields)
p.72-73:
1.fourth:more fundamental level the diffused audience experience may be characterized by the virtual invisibility of performance.(unaware performance; we are audiences and performer at the same time)==>argue: perforance is not a discrete event.
p.73:
1.Human society itself is theatre.
2.Sennett:the notion of society as theatre serve three 'constant moral purposes.' 01>illusion and delusion become intrinsic issues in social life. 02>human nature becomes detached from social action. 03>the images of theatrum mundi are pictures of the art people exercise in ordinary life(art of acting).
p.74:
1.diverge role-playing or social-life-as-theatre into two respects: 01>specific to comtemporary society than society in general. 02>because mass communication provide an important resource for everyday performance.
p.75:
1.the difference between simple&mass audience and diffused audience is the "elimination of distance.(theare-in-the-street)"
2.enthusiams=>makes distance disappeared
-------------
=============simple=== mass=======diffused
communication== direct==== mediated===fused
local/global===== local===== global======universal
ceremony====== high===== medium====low
public/private=== public==== private=====both
distance======= high===== very high====low
attention====== high===== variable civil==inattention
