INTERVENTION!

[user_3091]

Flies - you said:

"if the 'performers' were considered like the leaders... "

Yuck! If you're going to do something, do it properly!


"The metaphorical democracy of improv rests on a very terse hierarchy between audience and performers. at the very least, would be interesting to see what happens when this rigid structure is destabilized"

"Terse"?
But also, well, it's already not that rigid a structure, as has been poiinted out innumerable times in this thread (environmental sound, gigs outside, the Mattin/Malfatti piece mentioned above).
And there are improvisers who have involved the audience for years (some names I mentioned earlier: Adam Bohman et al)

There are very simple ways you can obliterate these kind of hierarchies and people have already done them: things like contact micing all the audience members. Matt Davis, from what I've read, is currently very interested in developing 'situations' in a way you might find interesting - go read his blog.

Really, this whole discussion isn't something you can generalise or legislate about in an "is it OK to join in?" way. I think it's pretty funny that the question was even asked . Do what you like and see what happens. Doesn't this music generally like to call itself experimental?

[user_3091]

someone asked me for details of Matt Davis's blog. I shouldn't really have called it Matt Davis's blog. "Field" is an ongoing project he's involved with.

http://www.in-a-field.blogspot.com" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false;

[flies]

first off, debate seems to have become a very adversarial thing on this forum, which is most unfortunate. Certainly nobody 'has to explain hiself', I just enjoy brainstorming about ideas, be they goofy or more serious in nature.

There are very simple ways you can obliterate these kind of hierarchies and people have already done them: things like contact micing all the audience members.

from the sound of it, that seems like what i was encouraging, no?

Matt Davis, from what I've read, is currently very interested in developing 'situations' in a way you might find interesting - go read his blog.

got a link? i assume it's not http://mattdaviss.wordpress.com/" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false;

also, i'm not so interested in obliterating the hierarchy, just destabilizing it a bit to see what happens. (perhaps you meant above that making the 'performers' leaders was not following through with the obliteration of the hierarchy program, but that's not important to me, and doesn't seem musicaly interesting.)

[jon abbey]

if you're going to "brainstorm about goofy ideas", feel free but you shouldn't expect well-considered (or any) responses in return.

my position on this is clear, but I can sum it up again for you: the performer has the right to try to break the divide between themselves and the audience (although for me, this rarely ends up being successful), the audience members don't. if they do it, they're almost certainly either being egotistical or a dick, to use two terms from earlier in the thread.

[the_semen_incident]

if you're going to "brainstorm about goofy ideas", feel free but you shouldn't expect well-considered (or any) responses in return.

my position on this is clear, but I can sum it up again for you: the performer has the right to try to break the divide between themselves and the audience (although for me, this rarely ends up being successful), the audience members don't. if they do it, they're almost certainly either being egotistical or a dick, to use two terms from earlier in the thread.

Stupid question: is "they" the performer or the audience members who accept the invitation to join in when given an opportunity?

I think 99% of the time if you just throw a microphone into a crowd, someone will pick it up and say something really retarded and be generally annoying with it... (though, for me, I never have had a performance where 'certain' behavior is expected, since most events consist of local dumb asses and youngsters anyways.. not the "sophisticated arty types"... It kind of depends on the audience too, really, but usually the only one willing to do it has something idiotic to say, that is definitely true, regardless of the type of people.)

But if you mean the actual "original" performer, I don't really see why they are egotistical/a dick.
---
Anyways, this contact mic'ing idea is interesting. I often thought it'd be fun to hide mics with wireless receivers throughout a building prior to a gig and manipulating, or even just mixing the dry signal of what gets picked up from the mics set up all over the place. It eliminates (or at least decreases) the likelihood of someone talking directly into a mic, or even knowing they are being put in the performance... That takes away the "ego/dick factor" and would hopefully make for something really interesting... But that set up would cost a lot of money! It's been a wet dream of mine for a couple of months now.

[flies]

the performer has the right to try to break the divide between themselves and the audience (although for me, this rarely ends up being successful), the audience members don't.

i agree with you. I just would like to see more artists inviting crowd participation, as in o8ther kinds of music it really heightens the sense of excitement at a show, eg handing the mic to fans, call and response in hip-hop and elsewhere, "clap you hands everybody", etc. Figuring out some way of getting something similar into free improv seems like a worthwhile endeavor.

Brainstorming about goofy ideas is one way of describing an activity that many people i konw enjoy, such as me and my fiancee talking about the cookbook we'll never write or the cafe we'll never open. I'm just sharing my enthusiasm, if other people don't dig it then maybe i should tone it down? metadialogue...

[jon abbey]

yes, by 'they' above, I meant the audience.

the performer has the right to try to break the divide between themselves and the audience (although for me, this rarely ends up being successful), the audience members don't.

i agree with you. I just would like to see more artists inviting crowd participation, as in o8ther kinds of music it really heightens the sense of excitement at a show, eg handing the mic to fans, call and response in hip-hop and elsewhere, "clap you hands everybody", etc. Figuring out some way of getting something similar into free improv seems like a worthwhile endeavor.

sure, I'm just telling you from my experience that I don't agree. the role of the audience at a (compelling) free improv show is to listen and almost more importantly, to allow other people to listen. that's more than enough for most people, again assuming the music's compelling. if it isn't, leave and go do something else, go home and make your own music if you feel irritated/inspired enough by what was lacking in the show you just attended.

I don't believe that every barrier needs to be broken down, some are there for very good reason. they should all be considered, examined, and reexamined, and I think we've done quite a bit of that in this thread already, arguably more than the question deserves.

[flies]

fair enough. difference of opinion.

I'm totally with you about not breaking down barriers for no reason. I described a few reasons why i think these particular barriers could be explored, which are not really because i don't like the barriers as they are, but that something different might also be interesting, so even if you don't agree i appreciate that people are willing to entertain the ideas i put forward.

[J.F.]

Does somebody here consider it an acceptable idea to join a performance of a very silent piece of composed "classical" music?

[free math]

music sparse enough to allow external sounds to be heard to audience and musician alike (and this is a very very small percentage of live music) is of course capable of producing satisfactory or unsatisfactory listening experiences. for me, the difference is between environmental and accidental sounds, and intentional (intervening) sounds. a cough during a quiet portion of music wouldn't upset me, nor would a glass clink that sounded incidental, whether it was or not. generally i prefer if the audience shuts up and listens, and not risk ruining it.

mattin and radu malfatti's set at erstquake last year, which i thought of as more of a performance piece (hell, even sound art) than a piece of music, highlighted all of the environmental and accidental sounds in the room. had someone been tapping on their folding chair in a way that sounded intentional, it would have ruined it for me. the cell phone ring, on the other hand, was ok because it was obviously an accident.

[J.F.]

Does somebody here consider it an acceptable idea to join a performance of a very silent piece of composed "classical" music?

-
So does the circumstance that improvised music tends to be more process-orientated than most classical performances open it up for audience participation?

[Gaendaal]

had someone been tapping on their folding chair in a way that sounded intentional, it would have ruined it for me. the cell phone ring, on the other hand, was ok because it was obviously an accident.

That's intriguing. I'd have felt the other way around. Strange.

(not that your opinion on it is wrong, of course)

[gohleekwang]

the subject in full is "thought on 'audience participant' from Sebastian Lexer's free audio, and it is an interruption?" unfortunately it did not show on the subject.

first sorry i did not do any research and i did not follow this forum constantly, i did not if there has been some discussion about this , or maybe there is a video of this particular performance. also i must apologies that my online dictionary is not working properly, which at somehow i cannot find the word i m looking for.

anyway here is my thought:

from the free audio of Sebastian Lexer's website (http://sebastianlexer.eu/audio/free-audio/), second track ended with the 'audience participant', which is a very nice surprise as a recording (without seeing how the audience and other audiences react to the screaming). what cross my mind is why is he doing this? if it was a rock concert, noise concert, then it might be possible, but during such gentle, focus performance, how can something like this happen?

and the recording ended there, makes me wander, if it was an audience participant, why it is did not carry on? is it because the guy who doing the recording turn off his recorder, or the somebody edit out the recording? i know in this case the title "audience participant" is with a sense of humor, but i m curious to know how other are thinking in this case. i remember there was another discussion about audience participant on Mattin, Jean-Luc Guionnet & Taku Unami's performance last year.

on the other hands, is it an interruption? because it is not part of the plan. or where is the line between audience participant and interruption? to me it is more on the intention of the participant, but somehow the audience with good intention can make a mistake as well. and in this case, i play the recording to a friend, and he did not consider the 'audience participant' as an interruption, he think the screaming is "right on time", and why the performance did not continue. to me i think it is an interruption, and the only reason i like to listen to the rest of the recording (if any) is just curiosity.

[Dan Warburton]

So what, somebody screams his head off four times at the end of a gig.. Mattin screams his head off during the gig, what's the big deal?

[gohleekwang]

So what, somebody screams his head off four times at the end of a gig.. Mattin screams his head off during the gig, what's the big deal?

was it the end of the gig? i thought he was interrupting the on going performance.

Mattin screaming is part of his performance, he is not audience participant or interrupting the performance, it is different.

[Dan Warburton]

So what point are you trying to make? That this music is provocative, dangerous, avant-garde, cutting edge, essential?

[AlbionMoonlight]

This is an older thread, and I don't believe I commented on the first go-around, but this form of pre-determined and precisely demarcated audience "interaction" fails conceptually so often that I feel its most obvious visual companion needed pointing out.

Such "interaction" rings of relational aesthetics, Nicolas Bourriaud's catch-all for relationship-based installation art of the 1990's. For more details, here's a 2001 interview from Artforum (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... _75830815/). Early on, Bourriaud focused on the work of Rirkrit Tiravanija, a Thai artist whose installations were constructed to foster interpersonal communication while highlighting the disparity of communication outside of the gallery. Here's a 1996 Artforum article on the artist for more information (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... cra.2.a.22). In short, participants enter the gallery-space, a normally non-interactive environment of passivity, and are encouraged by the artist's construct to engage in communal activities, e.g., cooking. There is no object on display, rather, the relational (hence the name) aspects of art and society are underlined. However, many critics found these scenarios to be contrived--how can one foster human relationships in such a shallow and detached manner? How can the artist be treated as a primary architect for social interaction in light of the project's attempt at hierarchy leveling?

Musicians that transpose this relational methodology from the art gallery to the concert venue fall into the same pitfalls. From the participant's point of view, it feels hollow and conceptually backward. If the musician wants me to interact with him, why must it be on his/her own terms? It is an awkward attempt at leveling power, fallacious and unsuccessful as it hinges on an obvious power struggle. The musician cannot fabricate spontaneity so easily. And once the participant leaves the performance space, he or she does not feel more empowered by having been "allowed" to participate. If relational aesthetics is engineered to foster consciousness of relations from the gallery (or music space) to the outside world, it is ultimately hindered by the cloak of the artist's intentions and the stymieing of the participant's own critical faculties.

[hatta]

the subject in full is "thought on 'audience participant' from Sebastian Lexer's free audio, and it is an interruption?" unfortunately it did not show on the subject.

Lexar actually posted about this in a comment on Richards Blog:

Maybe some insights to the additional participation during the trio set.
At a moment when I played some slides on the strings, producing a wailing sound, an additional miaow was coming from the back of the hall. After the first surprise, and checking what kind of magic wand I had been using instead of my usual drum stick, it became apparent that someone else contributed to the music. The participant became more active and also started to resort to use his chair to enhance his sound palette, by which point the college security must have been made aware of him.
A little video I got forwarded from a member of the audience shows how he then started to scream in full volume while hitting himself in the face.
After the event I was told that he had been spending the entire day sitting in lectures and seminars to contribute in various, not necessarily suitable, ways and heckling the speakers. What a nice way to spend a day!

It'd be interesting to see that video he mentions...

[Dan Warburton]

Really? I think it'd be about as interesting as the American Nightmare nonsense here a month or so ago.

[gohleekwang]

what 'hit' me is during such focus performance, how can something like this happen? my guess is there must something wrong with the guy and it was nothing to do with the music playing at the time, in this case.

but what if somebody in the audiences make noise to express how he dislike the performance? not because it is bad set, but simply because it is not his thing. ie: a story i heard, audiences were talk very loud during Berdhard Gunter's concert, just because they did not appreciate his music.

and what should the performer do?