Thesis
Why Not Use the Web?
People have asked me why I don't use the Web in my project. The answer is that the web is too diffuse a medium to support live theater. The Internet is extremely powerful in its scope and pervasiveness. It's possible to access almost any kind of information from anywhere. But there is a way in which by being everywhere at once we are nowhere. Having live actors, even if they are on a video screen can bring a story to life.
As we become more and more engaged with digital media, we more and more lose possession of our bodies. Discussing dance performance in new media, Johannes Birringer notes how the contours of the performer's body "appear as a second or third generation of the source. The actual body is not, or no longer, here. The animated lines, in this digital theatre of disappearance, are slowly fading away, and the dance leaves behind the copies of traces."23 Within the context of working with live actors, my goals are in accordance with the goals of Performance Art.
The state of video on the web at the moment only allows for a very small "window" One of the most attractive things about live drama is the large space it takes up. Until such time as teleconferencing is widely available and cheap, Living Movies will have to be a live "co-present" experience. Even then, it might play better as a live experience where the Improv actors, like Roman gladiators, are served up as live sacrificial victims.
Comments or questions? Email to info[AT]henryharvey.com.
Copyright Henry Harvey 2006.