for that immediate gratification

having stated that disclaimer, let the games begin....

last night i went to BAM (brooklyn academy of music) to check out this alternative-ish event that was a little over my head (the link will take you to a description of the event), and i'm thinking at least half the audience felt the same way b/c when the discussion with the creators rolled around, poof! a significant chunk of the audience bounced.

the 'performance,' if you can call it that, was a series of pieces that used a range of media to contextualize ideas.....and, now i'm starting to sound like the creators of the piece. in any case, it was a very unique and, yes, interesting in that it tried to expand our notion of who journalists are in this day and age (bloggers), what it means to be a spectator/audience (generally passive consumers), and the over-stimulation/desensitization of the media industry and its consumers.

some parts of it were definitely engaging, but sadly enough those parts were the ones that alluded to pop culture references. i guess that's something that i got out of it - an opportunity to self-reflect on how i respond to post-modern pieces : )

another piece of it that i found refreshing was the distance that was created and taken away between the performers and the audience. it made us (the audience) do the work, try and latch on to something, process as we experienced the performance.

a few things that i wondered about are the (1) accessibility of the piece in terms of the language/references made throughout the piece, the audience that it's trying to reach and the audience that it ends up reaching, and if it's a relevant form of expression; and (2) the 'what next' of it - i'm finding that the arts seems to be such a self-indulgent area of pursuit some times and it's so easy to put things out there, but the harder part is to sift through it all and build connections to it - and this isn't something that can be expedited with the technology wave. i think that building connections to art is a very individual process - making the 'objective' display/experience into a subjective one.

given all this, i'm not sure i would attend another event like this, maybe just for kicks. but i don't find them to be that fulfilling (and they're likely to be designed that way, but still it's frustrating) and i'd much rather watch sex in the city or read calvin and hobbes for that immediate gratification. call me shallow, but when the disillusionment sets in, post-modernism is not the answer.