This was not brought up in class, it's just something that I've been mulling over for the past few days after a conversation I had with my housemates.
Andrew: So he says that there's no difference between going to a concert and listening to a record with extremely high quality headphones.
Ed: That's ridiculous. He really said that?
Andrew: Yeah, and I told him, 'There are so many sensory experiences that you don't get with just listening to the music. There's the band's presence and the lights...
Ed: Not to mention the crowd.
Andrew: Right, wait. What do you mean?
Ed: The crowd, it feeds off of the energy of the band and the band feeds of the energy of the crowd. The quality of the crowd and totally change the concert experience.
Andrew: So, by that logic they are contributors to the performance.
Ed: How do you figure?
Andrew: Well, let's suppose that the individual performance is its own work of art. Completely unique from every other performance.
Ed: Okay
Andrew: And the performance is made up of several elements that alter its quality.
Ed: Which are sound quality, visuals, energy of the band, and energy of the audience.
Andrew: And by this logic the audience would be as much a part of the artwork as the music.
Ed: I don't know about as much as...
Andrew: Okay, then they are a substantial part of the performance, the artwork.
Ed: So you're not trying to say that audience members are artists?
Andrew: No, just that they are a contributing factor to the the artwork, as much as the venue or the particular quality of the band's enthusiasm.
Ed: Alright, I'll give you that.
Question: How important to a performance do you think the energy of the crowd is?
Also any critiques you have for the dialogue will be appreciated, I'm planning on sending an expanded version of it to Thesis XII. The new version will include a new character that will function as a foil to my assertion that "the individual performance is its own work of art. Completely unique from every other performance."
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Responded to your post.
ReplyDeleteI think that there is a significant difference between changing the portrayal of a work of art and changing the work itself. So it does not follow that if the audience changes the singing of a particular song, than the audience changes the song itself.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I am excited to read the extended dialogue, because I think your entire argument rests upon the premise that each performance is its own work of art, a premise that you know I disagree with.
Good dialogue though, as far as it goes.