Re: discussions/plans

orangemouth (orangemouth@geocities.com)
Wed, 09 Apr 1997 09:37:31 +0000

johannes wrote;

>Scott, to take seriously a Boal workshop in the internet or
>telematically, yes, it could of course be done...(snip)

Thoughts - A couple of years ago I talked to Boal about the possibility
of applying puppetry techniques to his work. He thought about it for a
long time and eventually concluded that he was adamant that the value of
his work lay in actual bodily experience, and rehearsal in the same
living sinew that would later act.

My own practical experience - and that of others attests that this need
not be so - design and construction of a proxy body - if you will, an
avatar - can be part of the therapeutic process (be it social or
personal), and is a fair enough Brechtian device in its own right. The
issue is, perhaps, not so much whether Boal can be done with different
sorts of corporeality, but about the level of community and mutual
support that could be built among participants who are telematically
fictionalising themselves- and how to achieve it.

It's about how trust operates in cyberspace.

>...the issue of the digitally connected (privileged zone) and the
>digital homeless...

A well taken point. And widely relevant to all our practise - not just
for reasons of funding. This is one of the areas in which Stelarc's
post-biological paradigm is scariest, as evolutionary viability becomes
aligned to tehcnological access. Nor am I convinced by his wooly
pseudo-cyberpunk disavowal of such issues - where there's a will (to
tech) there's a way, the street finds it's own uses etc.

falling silent now, guy

(the putative Dance/Tech workshop concert should happen, and i'll help
any way i can).