Table of contents:
Acknowledgements 1. Introduction: An Orchid in the Land of Technology 2. Live Performance in a Mediatized Culture Teevee's Playhouse, Is It Live, Or...?, Against ontology, Got Live If You Want It, 3. Tryin' To Make It Real: Live Performance, Simulation and the Discourse of Authenticity in Rock Culture Seeing is Believing, I Want My MTV, Panic Clapton, 4. Legally Live: Law, Performance, Memory TeeVee's Courthouse, or The Resistible Rise of the Videotape Trial, You Don't Own Me: Performance and Copyright, Law and Remembrance 5. Conclusion Bibliography, Name Index, Subject Index.
In Liveness Philip Auslander addresses what may be the single most important question facing all kinds of performance today: What is the status of live performance in a culture dominated by mass media? By looking at specific instances of live performance such as theatre, rock music, sport and courtroom testimony, Liveness offers penetrating insights into media culture. This provocative book tackles some of the enduring 'sacred truths' surrounding the high cultural status of the live event.
Addresses what may be the single most important question facing all kinds of performance today. What is the status of live performance in a culture dominated by mass media?
Acknowledgements 1. Introduction: An Orchid in the Land of Technology 2. Live Performance in a Mediatized Culture Teevee's Playhouse, Is It Live, Or...?, Against ontology, Got Live If You Want It, 3. Tryin' To Make It Real: Live Performance, Simulation and the Discourse of Authenticity in Rock Culture Seeing is Believing, I Want My MTV, Panic Clapton, 4. Legally Live: Law, Performance, Memory TeeVee's Courthouse, or The Resistible Rise of the Videotape Trial, You Don't Own Me: Performance and Copyright, Law and Remembrance 5. Conclusion Bibliography, Name Index, Subject Index.
In Liveness Philip Auslander addresses what may be the single most important question facing all kinds of performance today: What is the status of live performance in a culture dominated by mass media? By looking at specific instances of live performance such as theatre, rock music, sport and courtroom testimony, Liveness offers penetrating insights into media culture. This provocative book tackles some of the enduring 'sacred truths' surrounding the high cultural status of the live event.
Addresses what may be the single most important question facing all kinds of performance today. What is the status of live performance in a culture dominated by mass media?
Praise for the Second Edition:
"Auslander's Liveness emerges, then, not simply as a revised and updated version of the original text, but, more remarkably, as a better, more readable book-one that will almost certainly remain foundational for future historical, critical, and theoretical elucidations of the dynamic tension between the live and the mediatized, perhaps the defining paradox of contemporary performance." -Brian Eugenio Herrera, University of New Mexico, USA
"Almost twenty-five years since its original publication, during which digital culture and technologies have become increasingly integral to our lives and cultural practices, while the pandemic has rapidly necessitated a deeper conversation about mediatized performance, the questions Auslander asked in Liveness are still applicable to emerging forms, practices and experiences of liveness. These questions are as relevant today as ever, particularly in the current theatre landscape where mediatized performance is not only about prerecorded or live broadcast performance, but also about various modes of digital and hybrid performance that use technologies at the core of their formation, design, critical rationale, staging and audience engagement strategies." - Seda Ilter, University of London, UK, Theatre Research International, October 2022
"Auslander's Liveness emerges, then, not simply as a revised and updated version of the original text, but, more remarkably, as a better, more readable book-one that will almost certainly remain foundational for future historical, critical, and theoretical elucidations of the dynamic tension between the live and the mediatized, perhaps the defining paradox of contemporary performance." -Brian Eugenio Herrera, University of New Mexico, USA
"Almost twenty-five years since its original publication, during which digital culture and technologies have become increasingly integral to our lives and cultural practices, while the pandemic has rapidly necessitated a deeper conversation about mediatized performance, the questions Auslander asked in Liveness are still applicable to emerging forms, practices and experiences of liveness. These questions are as relevant today as ever, particularly in the current theatre landscape where mediatized performance is not only about prerecorded or live broadcast performance, but also about various modes of digital and hybrid performance that use technologies at the core of their formation, design, critical rationale, staging and audience engagement strategies." - Seda Ilter, University of London, UK, Theatre Research International, October 2022