Table Of ContentLIVENESS
Liveness: performance in a mediatized culture 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?
Liveness begins with an overview of the cultural position of live
performance in a media-dominated culture. Philip Auslander shows that
media technology has encroached on live events to the point where many,
like the sports events and concerts that feature huge video screens, are
hardly live at all. He proposes a way of understanding the history of this
development based on an analysis of the relationship between early
television and the theatre.
Auslander goes on to a detailed analysis of what live performance has
meant in rock music culture, arguing that live performance has been
devalued here, as it has been in the culture at large. The final section of
the book examines one social realm in which live performance seems to
have retained much of its traditional value: the legal arena. Through an
examination of American jurisprudence Auslander shows how the live
trial continues to be central to the legal process.
By looking at live performance, Liveness offers penetrating insights
into media culture. Auslander also takes issue with those who see live
performance as a means of commenting on media culture from the
outside. This book will provoke debate on a rarely addressed issue that
is essential to our understanding of both performance and the culture
within which it takes place—what is live performance and what can it
mean to us now?
Philip Auslander teaches Performance Studies and Cultural Studies at
the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. His other books include From
Acting to Performance (Routledge, 1997).
LIVENESS
Performance in a mediatized culture
Philip Auslander
London and New York
First published 1999
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1999 Philip Auslander
The right of Philip Auslander to be identified as the Author of this Work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Liveness: performance in a mediatized culture/Philip Auslander.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Performing arts—Social aspects.
2. Rock music—Performance.
3. Trials. I. Title.
PN1590. S6A88 1999 98–43440
791’.0973’0904–dc21 CIP
ISBN 0-023-00695-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-023-21666-0 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-19689-2 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-19690-6 (pbk)
FOR DEANNA SIRLIN, MY SOUL AND
INSPIRATION
Why would you make live work in an age of mass communica-
tions? Why work in more or less the only field which still
insists on presence? For artists interested in “the contempo-
rary” this area of live performance seems like a bit of a
backwater. Do you have something against mass-reproduction?
Do you work from some quaint notion about immediacy and
real presence?
I don’t know.
Answer the question.
(Forced Entertainment 1996:87)
Like most art critics, I get my best ideas from television.
(Dave Hickey 1996:43)
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
1 Introduction: “An Orchid in the Land of Technology” 1
2 Live performance in a mediatized culture 10
Teevee’s playhouse 11
Is it live, or…? 23
Against ontology 38
Got live if you want it 54
3 Tryin’ to make it real: live performance, simulation, and the
discourse of authenticity in rock culture 61
Rock culture and the discourse of authenticity 62
Seeing is believing 73
I want my MTV 85
Panic Clapton 94
4 Legally live: law, performance, memory 112
Teevee’s courthouse, or the resistible rise of the videotape trial 114
You don’t own me: performance and copyright 131
Law and remembrance 153
5 Conclusion 158
Bibliography 163
Index 173
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Talia Rodgers for her enthusiasm and unflagging
support of this project from the moment I first told her about it over a
modest dinner in Philadelphia, through our discussion of it over a much
nicer lunch in London, and beyond.
The material of this book has been the basis for numerous papers
and presentations over the last six years. I want to thank all the
organizers of conferences, panels, and public lectures who provided me
with platforms. The responses I got on all occasions were stimulating
and instructive; the influence of those occasions and audiences is
reflected here.
A number of colleagues, both inside and outside the academy, made
significant contributions to the ideas expressed here. I would like to thank
Mike Jones, Richard Neupert, Matthew Starr, Leslie Taylor, and all my
colleagues in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture at
Georgia Tech for invaluable dialogue. Special thanks to Margery
M.Fernald and Michael Landau for helping me with legal research and
for talking law with me.
And thanks to Evie (The Dog) Sirlin whose live presence made the
work on this book so much more pleasant.
Parts of Chapters 2 and 3 appeared in “Liveness: performance and
the anxiety of simulation,” in Performance and Cultural Politics, edited
by Elin Diamond (London and New York: Routledge, 1996); part of
Chapter 2 was published as “Against ontology: making distinctions
between the live and the mediatized,” Performance Research, 2, 3 (1997);
part of Chapter 3 appeared as “Seeing is believing: live performance
and the discourse of authenticity in rock culture,” Literature and
ix
