iCinema Response

The issue of liveness, interaction, intimacy and audience experience is prevalent when analysing a live performance in a mediatised culture. In acting as a participant within the iCinema last week, I actually got the chance to realise and experience our discussed theories of liveness from early on in the course. Standing amongst the ruins, strolling through Bondi beach, driving around Tamarama beach and exploring a Mine completely changed my perception of liveness. The first three were recorded events, however were simulated and presented to the audience as the present. The audience experienced the sounds and visual landscape of these representations and were put into a live, moving reproduction of them, sometimes with alterered elements such as a mythical animation flying about the screen. I run on the ideology that liveness is measured on the level of intimacy and immediacy as experienced by the audience. To the extent of the iCinema, though it has not completely achieved the experiences of liveness, (if ever) it did seem a surreal experience, that is the experience was noticably not real but extremely interactive, intimate and arguably immediate. I think imitacy and liveness was not completely achieved here due to the idea that the audience were constantly reminded of their location within the room as the centre and were separated from the screen during the panoramic presentations. Intimacy was achieved on a higher level through represenations of the Mine when the room was completely dark, 3D goggles were on and people felt as claustrophobic as a real mine would feel...I also noticed myself ducking below a projected beam as it seemed to hit my head...and even though I knew it wasn't real...I caught myself out continuously ducking for cover. 3D visual effects bring a great deal of liveness as it confuses the brain to thinking what is immediately real and what is fake. It blurs the distinctions between the real and fake, between the present (live) and past (recorded). The panoramic representations however would have seemed extremely surreal if the audience were placed within realistic positions. Driving through Tamarama Beach was not as "live" and realistic as it caused motion-sickness between a few people (and myself) but also due to the fact that it was constantly moving at a fast pace. It is not realistic for a standing audience to suddenly be thrown into the environment of a moving vehicle when you can clearly see your surroundings and walk around...this distorts reality and liveness due to a clash of experience. The iCinema however, is advancing towards that blur between reality and the projected...I give credit to the use of 3D glasses, however the centre platform which the audience stands within should be darkened moreso than what it was within the iCinema to enable complete psychological and visual immersion into what is being projected to the audience. When the audience forgets about their physical position...it is then when liveness is truly successful.