Comments on: Hyperdocumentation: Better Than the Real Thing?

By: Suzanne Lainson

Suzanne Lainson — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 21:14:44 +0000

“It’s like when you are at top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I want to tell everyone to just soak in the view and relax. But instead, everyone is busing taking photos for their face book profile.”

Which would suggest that events are to many more about identity than experience.

I’m not sure it’s necessarily bad or good. It’s just helpful in understanding what motivates people. They want to communicate that they were at the event rather than just being there.

My father was a constant photo taker. He even took photos while attending my mother’s funeral. I couldn’t relate to it, but so many people are doing the equivalent these days. While it’s easy to assume these people are missing life while being so busy documenting it, for them that is how they relate to their surroundings.

By: Daniel Larkin

Daniel Larkin — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:39:13 +0000

Lyra – as usual you go right for the jugular. Love the story you opened the article with.

I’ve always liked the saying that if you’ve got one foot in the past and one foot in the future, you are shitting on the present. There is something about these obsession with documenting that kills me.

It’s like when you are at top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I want to tell everyone to just soak in the view and relax. But instead, everyone is busing taking photos for their face book profile.

By: Veken Gueyikian

Veken Gueyikian — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:52:50 +0000

Well Said!

“The path of salvation for all performance art in this day and age is obvious: you gotta have beer, hot dogs and mosh pits.”

I was thinking the same thing.

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 11:28:25 +0000

Actually being there fixes you in a time and in a position relative to the event. This is what the event rendered via documentation doesn’t ever offer. But if this is all that is unique about being there, then perhaps it’s a mere phenomenological nuance that’s far outweighed by the advantages of multi-media, multi-perspectival documentation. Add to that the human realities of your bodily discomforts, limited attention span and fading memory, then what’s the point of sitting out there and seeing it live? The path of salvation for all performance art in this day and age is obvious: you gotta have beer, hot dogs and mosh pits.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:01:53 +0000

People are just too afraid of forgetting.

By: Suzanne Lainson

Suzanne Lainson — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:40:00 +0000

Great piece. I’ve been thinking about and writing about the same concepts. I’ve noticed the extent to which audiences are taking photos, recording, and texting while at concerts. They are inserting themselves into the event. They don’t just want to be passive consumers of music and art. So I think creators of music, art, theater, etc. need to be prepared for a time when everyone will view themselves as creators, producers, and promoters at some level.