Staff Posting STAFF KEYWORDS QUESTIONS/COMMENTS

RE: Your request to ask questions and make comments to the presenters.

Immediately after I post this message, I'll be posting all the presenters keywords, modalities, and topics. You are invited to use the comment box to address questions or comments to the presenters using these postings.

The cut-off point for submitting questions is Saturday at 4.00 GMT

(You click on the comment box at the end to add your comment, but unfortunately it must be text, as the blog won't allow you to post visuals.

JR

AMS Group A (Loreto, Olga, and Ty) RESPONSE (Minority) form TAM Group A

Sorry for the delay. It was beyond our control.

We find the sociological definition of minority exposes the contradiction of the term. Just to take one step further from the given definition, we’d like to relate this to conditions in developing countries, in which people below the poverty line comprised the majority of the population, but no access to power. The case is the same with women. One of the concepts implicit in this definition that needs to be unpacked is: power. Who handles the pot defines the majority and minority. So in this sense, the concept is relative to power relations. And that’s why the “minority” is always at the disadvantaged.

Thank you to the groups A in Finland and in Warwick

AMS B Comment (E-dentity) Final posting

Keyword: ‘E-dentity’ (Keith)

DEFINITION (inc. source):
‘E-dentity’, online identity, and digital identity were not found in any reputable dictionaries I consulted. These are the definitions I found that address the term I’m calling ‘e-dentity’

Digital identity - The electronic representation of a real-world entity. The term is usually taken to mean the online equivalent of an individual human being, which participates in electronic transactions on behalf of the person in question. However, a broader definition also assigns digital identities to organizations, companies, and even individual electronic devices.


Digital identity refers to the aspect of digital technology that is concerned with the mediation of people's experience of their own identity and the identity of other people and things. Digital identity also has another common usage as the digital representation of a set of claims made by one digital subject about itself or another digital subject. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_identity

Online identity is a social identity that network users establish in online communities. Although some people prefer to use their real names online, most Internet users prefer to identify themselves by means of pseudonyms, which reveal varying amounts of personally identifiable information.
In some online contexts, including Internet forums, MUDs, instant messaging, and massively multiplayer online games, users can represent themselves visually by choosing an avatar, an icon-sized graphic image. As other users interact with an established online identity, it acquires a reputation, which enables them to decide whether the identity is worthy of trust.

Here is the challenge of E-identity!

Say we were to consider E-identity an externalization of subjectivity. As the ultimate goal of one's subjectivity is performativity, affecting change and action and fulfillments of real life needs and desires... to what extent can the Nietzschean ideal of Overman ('Uber mensch') be fulfilled through the existence of E-identity, 'living' in the (e)-world devoid of morals of its own?

What happens when the E-identity blurs with the real world?

Is E-identity a performance? According to Schechner, performances are recognized as having beginnings, middles and endings. Where does the performance of E-identity begin and end?
What are its boundaries?

Our response:

We think that the (e)-world is capable of fulfilling the ideal of Overman, however, achieving this ideal is not a result of an environment that is void of morals. Your point about the absence of morals doesn’t strike us as an accurate description of the (e)-world. While it may differ from the ‘real world,’ virtual reality is firstly, reflective or informed by the real world. In addition, it generates its own restrictive elements: conventions, codes of behavior, etc., which structure both the emergence of one’s E-dentity and the manner in which that extension of the self is performed.

Your third challenge seems to indicate that digital identity is not one of infinite possibilites after all because there are clear boundaries in the sense that, if we were to see it as a performance, it begins with you logging on, registering an account perhaps and choosing what to display, and ends when you log off. There is also the option of ending the performance by deleting said identity and editing it (costumes, props, characters).

We find it a lot more difficult to respond to your second challenge because, really, a number of things could happen when the boundary between the two worlds is blurred. There might be individuals who are so immersed in their E-dentities and want to retreat from the ‘real world,’ but we feel that the conditions that exist in the ‘real world’ are not completely escapable e.g. physical need for sustenance, sleep, technology failing you, etc.

Comment

We think that in responses above people were concentrating on how our lives are being intergated with virtual reality and how virutal reality becomes more real then the actual reality.

What this discussion opened up for us was the realization that nowadays technology brings us out of the small dark room attached to our computers, and our virtual realities. We are now entering the physical world, hand-in-hand with, but not always aware of virtual reality. For example, there are now surveillance cameras around every corner, space is augmented by chips, GPS and mobile phone technology, and we are asked to carry our student number with us wherever we go.

Now, without question, we carry our e-dentities with us in the actual physical world, as opposed to being bound to them in a virtual space, via our computers.

AMS Group C - FINAL POSTING Gule

(Our synthesis is at the end of this thread)

AMS Group C - DEFINITION Gule For Tampere Group C

KEYWORD: Gule
Language: Chichewa. A Malawian Language

1) In loose english translation this word means 'traditional dance'.

2) Gule refers to the combination of music (drumming, whistling etc.) song, dance and drama.

3) Unlike the separation in European performing arts disciplines, Gule in Malawian context sees the elements of music, dance and drama as inseparable. For example, during a dance, drama with identifiable characters and a clear narration becomes part of it.

Posted by: Lonneke, Mele, Catherine

TAM Group C Ua Kristina Jocelyn CHALLENGE [Gule] for WAR Group C

AMS Group C - DEFINITION Gule For Tampere Group C
KEYWORD: Gule
Language: Chichewa. A Malawian Language
3) Unlike the separation in European performing arts disciplines, Gule in Malawian context sees the elements of music, dance and drama as inseparable. For example, during a dance, drama with identifiable characters and a clear narration becomes part of it.

1. We would first like to challenge the point that European performing arts traditions separate the different performance forms of music, dance and drama as clearly as it may seem on first consideration. We would like to give classical ballet as an example which combines the three forms, with orchestral music, dance, and mime combined into a single performance.

2. Our second consideration is not so much a challenge, but we would like to raise the point that many Asian performance traditions are similar to Gule in Malawi, in that they also combine many peformance forms - an example would be the traditional Khon of Thailand. Furthermore, traditional Asian performance forms often have a spiritual aspect, adding yet another layer to the performance.

3. Another example from Africa, of a performance form that combines many elements - the Bangoura.

WAR Group C RESPONSE [GULE] for AMS Group C

New Response:
We agree with your initial challenge in that European practices have a long tradition of a syncretic approach to performance dating back from Greek tragedy. The line can be followed through to Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk which has in turn influenced many 20th century practitioners.
However, we are wary of seeing the fusion of art forms involved in gule, ballet, Khon, and Bangoura, and other performance practices as necessarily adding artistic value. To pursue this synthesized approach for its own ends without context and content could well result in a weaker final product in which each individual art form suffers. Performances where a synthesis of individual art forms are brought together under the guise of transcultural interaction, as in a 'cultural collage' where performance practices are sometimes combined without concern for context or content, can do more harm than good. If a practitioner wishes to utilize a fusion of various cultural forms they must do so with the respect and understanding of all the traditions they wish to assimilate. A full synthesis of performance is not always the best; each art form contains its own virtues too.

FINAL POSTING/SYNTHESIS by: Lonneke, Catherine, Mele

What has happened in this proces of posting and responding today? We can take this as a sociological test-case for intercultural dialogue.

Tampere contested the point that European performing arts traditions are separated in disciplines by using the example of ballet. However, the point we were making in the beginning was that the west tends to taxonomise the arts into seperate disciplines, of which ballet is one (it has a very strong emphasis on dance and is thus taxonomised). Gule does not fit in this taxonomy. The challenge to the international scholar is to be aware of these differences and find ways to address them. Most importantly to find a suitable theoretical framework for analysis.
We would also like to thank Tampere for providing examples of other similar performative traditions in other parts of the world.

Warwick compared Gule to the Wagnerian Gesamtkuntswerk and applied this to the intercultural theatre practice. It is interesting to note that both Gesamtkunstwerk and the contemporary intercultural theatre practice have a creator-based process, thus an emphasis on a unified “director/creator” vision. Here we see fundamental paradigmatic difference between the notion of Gule in its Malawi context as an intrinsically integrated concept, and the Gesamtkunstwerk as an aesthetics put forward as a theory.

To conclude:
If we go beyond the exercise of defining and challenging definition, and If we put these discussions in the context of our objectives in MAIPR, we could propose the investigation of Gule as a framework for production-making and theory.

Warwick Group A Response (Minority) AMS Group A

Minority.

The last post we made seems to have loaded up and then deleted itself. We're not sure what happened, so sorry! We'll try and keep the points we made brief.

1) For a minority to exist there has to be a point of reference by which that minority can be established as such. For example, in Singapore homosexuals are a minority because the power politics work to create a majority by which that minority can be established.

2) What about the Sydney Mardi Gras? At this festival Homosexual men and women constitute the majority whereas Heterosexuals, in contrast, are the 'minority'. Outside of this festival these binaries are not so much reversed as abolished.

3) As such, the term 'minority' is a relative concept. It is dependent on a point of reference in order to give it meaning.

Please see this link below of Sydney's mardi gras:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QlhCqGBwJY

I apologise for this abridged version. The last one was pretty expansive! But hopefully this has helped to clarify our points!

WAR Group B COMMENT medium final posting

TAM Group B’s response: This is what Amsterdam challenged us

Perhaps this hypothetical performance was recorded for archival purposes, now the digital media (a derivative of medium) is the medium for a new host of spectators to receive the performance.

http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=5330092731&oid=20958116280


According to Plato words medium will make the performance a copy of copy, thus less than ideal and loses its original value. Walter Benjamin says that in this way it loses its ''aura". The digital media archive, while perhaps currently the best archival method for performance available, still does not do justice to capturing the initial "aura" of the live performance.

Our comments:

We think that technology does not automatically destroy art; it changes it, but that does not mean that there is a devaluation of art. Recordings or mechanical reproductions create an experience that may deviate from what the original offers. However, technologically-driven mediums are not empty. For example, archival materials can be distributed, reaching a wider audience of potential spectators, and can preserve events that would otherwise evaporate from memory. Digital media also presents performers with something new to work with and respond to.

It would be beneficial for us, in engaging with different types of media, to be conscious of their differences and not think that they are interchangeable with one another. Digital media does not replace live performance, nor does it dismantle it. Art adapts and our expectations have to adapt with it.

To end off, the discussion so far has focused on one particular definition of the word, but our group is aware of the other definitions and uses of the term and find those equally interesting, as well e.g "physical material or form used by artist, composer, etc." or "person claiming to communicate with the dead." Perhaps something for future discussions?

TAM Group A end report FINAL POSTING

There has been some misunderstanding and we haven't got neighter challenges or responses for the definition of our word 'minority.' So, unfortunately, we cannot comment it now, but if something comes during the day, we'll give our best!