Post-Stein we did some listening. The point here was to make
connections to the ideas we have already discussed. To this end we revisited
Cage for a bit but then moved on to listen to Reich’s Come Out. I actually relish
having students listen to the this in real time. 13 minutes of this kind of
sound is a long time, but if they listen actively by tracing how the sounds
evolve its not as painless as it might sound. It is a great piece to discuss
indeterminacy, the death of the author and the idea of the open work. Reich’s
position of listening is basically the same as ours. I do find it interesting
that it is this moment that is blown up into the Gen Art class, the way the
tail end of the Aesthetics of Dissonance class crosses over into the Postmodern
class. The linkages between the three are really interesting, and yet each one
traces a different trajectory to the present moment. Reich was followed by
Lucier and Basinski, all basically doing the same thing.
The follow-up day is basically difficult listening hour part
two – post – punk, rock, classical, digital, etc. Here I riffed on the idea of
post a bit to tray and break it out of just post-modern, but to show how this
idea – once developed – could play out in a number of different ways. More a
clips and samples class than the extended listening of the previous one. Like
the Reich, the idea is to make connections to the techniques and ideas we have
discussed.
This class was followed by the presentation of the
“hypertext” project – in which students had to take a passage from Stein’s Dr. Faustus and bring ten external
elements to bear on it. The projects were fantastic. Really all over the map.
Clearly a development from the initial juxtaposition project – here the
collisions were deep, rich, and informed the text in any number of ways. One
element that we reflected on is how aggressive many of these projects were.
Perhaps because of the aggression of Stein’s text, or perhaps the gesture of
layering ideas onto something brought this out. This is the first time I have
used this assignment in this class and it worked quite well. A great lead in to
the Wooster Group.
So we watched House/Lights
the Wooster Group’s deconstruction of Stein’s Dr. Fautus. We spent a class period discussing their working method
and keying on the rift that developed with them working on Miller’s The Crucible. This lead to a great
conversation about ownership and when you have crossed the line and violated
that. Also – a good conversation about deconstruction in general. The following
class was the video. It had been some time since I have watched it – it really
is kind of a beautiful mess. Aggressive, frenetic, loud, layered, everything
postdramatic theatre aspired to be. A fitting final piece to the term.
The conversation today about the video was great. Lots of
wonderful connections to the postmodern ideas as well as the projects. The
video provided a good document to tear apart and then discuss its structure. It
also allowed us to deal with a question that came up earlier in the term about
the postmodern actor. Filtering their live performances through tons of media
the WG folks seem like the perfect definition of that type of performer. Sort
of a post-actor in which you can’t distinguish between live and mediated and so
the question of presence gets completely disrupted. I did find it interesting
that a handful of folks that have been fairly quiet all term took the lead today to discuss the video.
Variety of material always seems like a good idea.
I’ll follow up after the final projects but one thing that
has been nagging me about this particular class structure is that we
essentially explored the major terms and ideas prior to the break – most of the
projects and readings were in the first half of the term. This meant that the
second half was more about applying the terms and ideas and therefore somewhat
less active. It feels less like we are driving to the end of the term and more
like we are winding down. I need to find a better way to handle this – a better
way to pass off the role of teacher to the students so they can bring it home.
But, I’m excited to see what they will do to Heiner Muller for their final
projects.
