In Real Time: Mediation and the Lives of "Liveness

"In Real Time: Mediation and the Lives of 'Liveness'" will examine the concept of "liveness" across media from an interdisciplinary, theoretical perspective. Liveness is given a great deal of attention in theater and performance studies, yet the term's meaning is underexplored and/or contested in sound, radio, television, and digital media studies. This course will look at how a sense of "liveness" is constructed vertically and horizontally for various media, and how ideas about what constitutes "liveness" have changed over time. As "liveness" becomes an integral part of a given medium, does it still refer to a relation between event and spectator in "actual" time and space? What is lost when the potential for preservation is opened, and how is the ephemeral quality of some media retained? What does this imply for our very notions of media, liveness, history, and living?