Phoning it in

During this quarter, I have, as I am sure most of my classmates have, become fascinated with the relationship between the audience and the performer, the reader and the writer, etc.  I hesitate, however, to use the term "relationship," for it carries with it a connotation of duality, of Two within One.  (Fun Fact: the word "relation" can be traced etymologically to the Old French word relacioun, meaning "report" or "act of telling."  Appropriate, no?)  My Final Performance will attempt to revert back to a more antiquated meaning of "relationship" and to dissolve, to the fullest extent possible, the idea of an any polarizing relationship between audience and performer.  What will remain is only a retelling of events which can and hopefully will be used by each of the 'audience' members to create a final narrative.

Let me 'splain.  The first logical step in deconstructing what we all recognize as performance is to remove completely the performer from the performance space.  As far as I can figure, as long as there is one person, one figure (a performer) set apart from the rest of those present at a performance, the paradigm will still exist.  I considered having each member of the class read my narrative while I lie on the floor, unmoving, in an attempt to disappear from the performance; however, this gesture would sure call more attention to me, the 'performer' than I would like.  The absence must be much greater and much more real.  I realized that there is no way that I could accomplish what I would like to do while being, spatially, within the walls of the performance space.

I landed upon the idea to communicate my narrative using technology with which we are all familiar.  Using skype would not do, it would be too communal.  My presence would still resemble that of a performer.  A phone call is the only form through which I can achieve maximum Performance-Duality-Dissolution (PDD).  The phone will be answered by one human inside the performance space, and, when prompted, this human will pass the phone to the human next in line.  Each human will hear a segment of the narrative created for the performance, and after each human has each heard one part of the narrative, they will work together, using the little information they have received, to create a whole out of each of the parts each of them have heard. It is not to be assumed that the segments will be provided in chronological order; furthermore.  To further reduce the presence of a 'performer,' I will use the second person when speaking to each of the humans within the performance space.

I though of displaying a photo of myself during the performance, but then I decided against inserting an artifact that was entirely counteractive to my cause.  I will use instead one or a few of some gifs I found that display morphing faces, not to be too blatant.

I plan to tell the story of how I typically write a poem, taking and synthesizing experiences from various poems written and their specific processes.  Hopefully the parallels between my form and content will become apparent during my performance.