Unspun - Chapter 9 – Performance

Chapter 9 – Performance

Online experiences can sometimes be classified as interesting because of what the author, Dietrich, calls the “performative freedoms” associated with them. No longer is a “performance” thought of only in a fine arts capacity. In this postmodern world, “speech is considered a ‘performative’ act.” There are elements of performing in the “virtual body” that has become so popular. There is a new “terminal identity” through the “human-machine interface”. “Theorists have emphasized the ‘performative’ dimension of language acts, both in terms of face-to-face discourse as well as computer-mediated communication.” After the 1970’s, the idea of performance was divided into “theatrical” and “performance studies”. While the former was focused on literary and dramatics, the latter was defined as “a nontheatrical, nonscripted type of performance.” A concept called the “metaphor of performance” created a standard of “basic human interaction” that was made evident in things like gender roles and ceremonies. “Performativity” was a term introduced to distinguish the two schools of performance. It relied on verbal and gesture signals, being able to “enact change or to cause things to happen by their utterative or gestural force.” The “performance” no longer just relies on the speaker, but the speaker’s technology.

The World Wide Web influences this “performativity” through images transferred and displayed through cyberspace. However, that which is played for the viewer is not considered “live”. The SLR uses its technology to give inventions and machines more practicality than just in warfare. They construct machines and robots to “put on a show”, so to speak. In fact, the whole idea behind these “robot wars” is considered “performativity” when it is given a “surreal presence” through pyrotechnics and the like. They are engineered to “menace one another or audience members” in a spectacle that is, in an odd way, performance art. Their initial goal was to concentrate on live experience (which “moves away from the reproduction of virtual technology ‘outside’ of copies, transmissions, and representations of technological culture”), but their website provides audio/visual broadcasting of these battles. The changing of the SLR’s philosophy was never really officially stated, but one member stated that though seeing it digitally was not as intense as the real thing, the founder could not find a good venue for the public and had to turn to the web to establish a fan base. He is quick to point out how it was not as “real” through the computer and the full effect is lost.

Through this, “one ideological movement” is transformed into another. The shift in technology is palpable. Even an authentic show is now digitized, reducing it to a video. However, the website is also seen as a social arena. So there are two totally different ways to view these battles. The author claims that this example is conducive to the new emphasis placed on the relationship between the cultures of human and computer. In this, “performance” is a metaphor for the “cyborg nature of humankind”, especially in those areas of fear “regarding electronic technologies, gender, and identity”. In the example of the SLR, there is seen a struggle between the “visible, masculine” machine and the feared “feminine technologies of cyberspace, cyborg manifestations, and introorganic processes, all of which represent an intrusion into the “text” of the body.

Machines are considered the boundary “between the natural and the cultural”, thus making one question the whole concept of a “human”. The old perceptions of masculine and feminine are found in “binary”, which is dual by nature. “The ambiguity of the human-machine interface” has led to a desire for differentiation between the two genders and in more defined self-identity. SRL draws on the masculine aspect of technology and embraces the warlike and “military” uses of machines. From the invention of the first machine, the twentieth century was a time of rapid invention. These inventions drew upon and improved human labor. These “industrial machines” were “utilitarian in function, daunting in size, and extremely noisy.” As they became more streamlined, they began to take the human form and even start to move “anthropomorphically”. This metal representation of a worker, while it “freed” him or her from manual labor, also stood for unemployment to many. It also stood for American pride back when they were marketed as “industrious robots skilled at accomplishing work that was dangerous, repetitive or simply boring.” Machines evolved into symbols for male vitality.

The advent of new mini technology like circuits and TV could not be defined in those metaphors. Likewise, “information technologies”, like the Web, are not representative of “visible power”, so they are considered feminine. The “female becomes collapsed” with the advent of postmodern machinery, thus triggering anxiety about gender identity and “bodily colonization”. Springer, while acknowledging the ambiguous nature of computers, points out that they are considered female because they are “small, fluid, and quiet functioning” and can take on another’s ego. The “cyborg” being in cyberspace is also thought of as female.

SRL is an “adrenaline rush” for those who wish to think of machines as autonomous. Bell points this out in his essay, saying that with this generation’s tendency to replace physical with virtual, performance can bring “human being back into contact with experiences of the physical body and memories of instinct.” By contrast, advertising is considered feminine. In order for SRL to be masculine in this endeavor, they must “embrace and resist the cultural tendency toward ‘surface’ and away from ‘depth’.” For them, the World Wide Web is just a substitute for something else.

“Productive” and “Reproductive cybertechnologies” are at odds in an “uneasy alliance”. Pauline’s injured hand is a testament to the comparison of actually being at SRL and watching a simulation. He signifies the masculine side of technology and aids in a “defense against a virtual age that threatens to dissolve the physical body”. It also signifies the “transition” from “autonomous robot” to “human-machine interface”. SRL sees what it does as “real” and the Web as a “surrogate”.

In the feminine “hyperreal”, “performance” is seen in avatars and 3-D websites. The physical drops away and performance lies in the language. The LambdaMOO “rape” is much like the SRL, but it lies in language and in seeing language as deeds on the Web. There is a debate if typed actions mean as much as real actions do in the real world. If it is given that much weight, there is a definite threat to our right to freedom of speech. Advocates of this law to make them equal argue that they cannot be separated. In the LambdaMOO case, there was no way to really get rid of the offending user. It affords the question about whether he/she did anything wrong legally and if LambdaMOO constituted an actual “real world”. To the user who was violated, real-life mental damage was done. Due to the nature of cyberspace, it has been both trivialized and blown up. What was eventually decided, in a way, was that there are “two directional planes” on the Web. “Performative acts bring about consequences, despite anonymity or pseudonymity, especially when these ‘acts’ involve sex violence, or self-representation.” There is a performity in language that can either be dismissed or discussed in detail. LambdaMOO confronted gender roles in their universe, as opposed to the SRL, who ignore it. One needs to be self-aware in order to confront these problems. Because cyberspace uses language and is social, it is performative and therefore cannot be thought as “risk-free”. This new concept of performativity must be studied.

Web “performances” are even more “seductive” when paired with graphics and audio. Some technology allows users to “manipulate graphics-based avatars”. In Stanford’s Virtual Theatre, one can fill any “real-life” role. The non-playable characters are “intelligent agents”, which are “lifelike”. These “agents” mark the beginning of virtual systems that engage the entire body. Virtual reality is the “successor” to interactive sites. A program called Placeholder utilizes “virtual reality and an interactive Web site.” This project played with the concept of performity on the Web. Visitors to the site can access content from the Virtual reality gear. This study of human-machine interactions brought the “physical back to the Web but through the context of performativity.” The computer-mediated communication “creates action”, rather than act as a substitute for it. In creating this program, there is a new prototype for “narrative action within virtual environments”. The link between technology and narration, as well as the language that “creates action and informs subjectivity”, shows how performativity works. The use of digitized versions of actual places coupled with interactive non playable characters gives the program a sense of “place”. The programmers had to define place both in spatial and human perception. Not only is Placeholder a marvel in technology, but it is also a “social inquiry into the nature of human-machine interactions”. The program was more than just a way to explore human-machine relationships. It became a way for users to “produce content” and also became a way of “embodied imagination”.

In order to combat incorporeality, the programmers reintroduced the body into the cyberspace world, without bringing in such things as identities and other “material constraints”. They wanted to achieve naturalness. Another program allowed one to take on other identities by touching the digital counterpart with the virtual reality software. In this way, the researchers hoped that the user would witness the “‘reconstruction’ of their bodies in the realm of the senses.” They realized the “social and cultural implications” of the body and, in essence, the virtual body. They attempted to reconstruct the “norms”. In an effort to have their users leave “marks” on the environment, they constructed virtual “voiceholders” in which users left their voices for others to listen to. In this way, the developers brought the voice into cyberspace. Most of all, Placeholder was about changing binaries: “body and machine, sound and image, body and mind”. Users could “find their bodies” and return to a new type of “physical”. The performative gestures used “challenged traditional notions of subjectivity and identity.”

These examples explain performance in a “posthuman framework”, a “‘terminal identity’ in postmodern terms.” As machines become more human and humans more like machines, the boundaries between the two entities becomes blurred. These new programs challenge this and have the users reexamine performance, subjectivity, and identity. These imagined notions “may or may not include actual, physical embodiment” and our images and televisuals replay “live performances through screening contexts.” “Our words can now have the import of actions, and we may play with our own notions of identity in multiple-user contexts.” No matter what “performance” or “performativity” may mean, it is still going to be true that “these dramatic narratives operate as part of a larger ‘textual’ exchange regarding our very subjective place in this postmodern moment.”