Interesting news that the West Yorkshire Playhouse decided NOT to allow tweeting or other mobile media use by their audiences, after some internal and external debate. There’s not much detail on the reasons for the decision in the article, but negative feedback from the universe and artistic concerns for the actors seemed to play a role. Said artistic director Ian Brown:
”People who think tweeting during performances [is a good idea] have to
be prepared to tell the actors that is what will be happening. I shall
be hiding.”
But, assuming we can eliminate the distraction to actors and other audience members (Tweet Seats would be assigned in the back row, or otherwise out of sightlines), does tweeting REALLY mean you’re not paying attention?
Ruth Jamieson in the Guardian explores both sides of the questions in her theater tweet etiquette piece. Says she:
…anyone who has ever kept a diary will know that to write about an
experience is to focus totally on it. Tweeting at the theatre will
increase your concentration and improve your experience…. As long as you don’t disturb those around you, and certainly not the
cast, you have a responsibility to do so. You improve your experience
and share it with people who might otherwise not experience the theatre — albeit via a screen, a phone and you.
Of course, you can’t guarantee that those using their mobile devices are actually discussing the theater experience with their friends. They could just as easily be texting about drinks later, or browsing the web for other ways to spend Act II. But who among us claims full attention, all the time, during a live experience? Our minds wander, they fade in and out of direct focus, and, in fact, this is often how a live experience grabs us in unexpected ways.
I wonder if theaters opposed to tweeters are also opposed to audience members taking notes, writing in diaries, or sketching during a performance. To what extent is sitting quietly, facing forward, and feigning full attention also just an act?
I sometimes fall asleep in performances. Will I get thrown out for that?
More seriously, I think that institutions need to confront the reality of what already is happening in the audience and think about what they do and don’t want to support not from their own personal biases of how they like to experience art but weighing what is and isn’t distracting to others (patrons, actors).
I’d love to see a backchannel for performances where people can discuss what just happened, or an allusion that they might not get, etc. Kind of like a crowdsourced commentary track on a DVD. Not everyone would choose to opt in, but for those who love seeing performances in that way, it would be wonderful. It might be a good reason to attend a performance multiple times – to get different nuance and discussion around the experience.
If you’re tweeting, you’re thinking, and the last thing you want an audience to do is to think. You want them to experience. Sure, afterwards they can think, and journal, and blog, and tweet all they want.
On the other hand, one thing that social networking is bringing to theater is what Nina Simon said in her comment, a backchannel for discussion. Why settle for just an audience commentary though? Why not publish your own tweets?
“Mantua is about 24 miles South of Verona. http:\\bit.ly/9Gr5sn”
“The king’s costume in this scene was inspired by Autumn leaves”
or, should you feel so inclined,
“Intermission soon, Sodapop FTW!”
“To what extent is sitting quietly, facing forward, and feigning full attention also just an act?”
I love this question!!!! When you are paying attention to something, what are you actually doing? What is the relationship between witness and witnessed???
Here’s one place where those questions are being explored. Authentic Movement is a movement practice for a mover & a witness.
From http://www.authenticmovementcommunity.org/aboutam.html
“Movers explore spontaneous gestures, movements, and stillness, following inner impulses in the present moment. The witness watches and tracks inner responses to the mover with the intention of not judging, but focusing on self-awareness.”
Does this have anything to do with your theater/twitter example? I have no idea. But it’s interesting to note that there are practices “out there” which explore these questions.
“…anyone who has ever kept a diary will know that to write about an experience is to focus totally on it. Tweeting at the theatre will increase your concentration and improve your experience….”
That’s like saying to your boyfriend while you’re kissing each other -“just a minute while I fully focus on this moment by writing about it in my diary”. It is only after all my experiences are over, at the end of the day, that I take my journal out of the drawer, and by writing or drawing begin to relate my objective self to my subjective experiences. Or -which is something different – I describe a work of art itself.
I have a subjective self which takes life in and I also have a reasoning capacity which lets me view my subjective life objectively. They are not the same thing. They are two different abilities. Neither survives if the other one is lost. I also have a sleeping self, which is attentive to something other than the world outside me. There’s no guilt in sleeping through a show, but a sleeper isn’t awake to what’s happening.
People who take notes during shows about the shows are called critics and they wouldn’t claim that writing makes their subjective experience *better* than that of the non-writing audience. Of course they aren’t trying to make the event more meaningful, or get a better ‘art high’. Their job is to actually leave behind most of their subjectivity and become objective about the work of art itself. Their notes written during the show remind them of critical thoughts so that they can later write about the art’s form and structure, offer historical overviews, and put the work into a context, criticize its ability to do what it set out to do, and be able to speak rationally about it all to the general public afterwards. This is a Tweet?
The existence of all art depends on our ability to take life in and experience each other with our whole being. How much complexity can we take in? What can we absorb without being overwhelmed, or backing away in fear? The ability to pay personal attention, (payment that costs us deeply of our attention and time) to anything, anyone, or any experience, is a learned ability. To make art and to receive it is one of the first signs of the presence of homo sapiens (the wise human). I’ve read this recently: if language significantly distinguishes homo sapiens from other animals, then the other half of all language is listening. Are we well on our way to evolving away from homo sapiens into homo techna?