Consumption more conspicuous onstage2/24/2023 ![]() Hence, theater may be said to exhibit simultaneously two realities, one “actual”, related to the performance itself, the other “fictional”, suggested by the performance. It is definitively “only a frame and a series of individual images” (Godard, 1999) of which the illusion of motion, and consequently of life, results from the effect of persistence of vision in the viewer.īy contrast, in live theater, the perceptual inputs, are not pictures but real-time “imitations”, designed to represent on the spot something else: a real, live actor, is a character as well, four boards and a chair on stage become in the viewers’ mind the court of Elsinore. ![]() The performance displayed is actually over by the time it is available to be viewed, and it may be watched anywhere, anytime. These media display a fac-simile of the real world on a fixed physically constrained space, i.e., the screen. Acting out stories in front of an audience has remained popular, whatever the cultural context, despite the tremendous technological developments intervened since the invention of motion picture, or video. The results showed that adhesion to theatrical events correlated with increased activity in the left BA47 and posterior superior temporal sulcus, together with a decrease in dynamic heart rate variability, leading us to discuss the hypothesis of subtle changes in the subjects’ state of awareness, enabling them to mentally dissociate physical and mental (drama-viewing) experiences, to account for the phenomenon of adhesion to dramatic fiction.Īccording to Aristotle, theater results from a human disposition for storytelling and imitation, “ one instinct of our (human) nature” (Aristotle, 350 B.C.E). The changes in this pattern related to subjects’ adhesion to fiction, were investigated using a region of interest analysis. These data served to specify, for each spectator, individual fMRI time-series, used in a random-effect group analysis to define the pattern of brain response to theatrical events. The instants of adhesion were defined as the co-occurrence of theatrical events determined a priori by the stage director and the spectators’ offline reports of moments when fiction acted as reality. To get insight into the physiological substrates of adhesion we recreated the peculiar context of watching live drama in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment, with simultaneous recording of heart activity. ![]() This phenomenon raises the issue of the cognitive processes governing access to a fictional reality during live theater and of their cerebral underpinnings. Indeed, the perceptual inputs issuing from a live theatrical performance are intended to represent something else, and the actions, emphasized by the writing and staging, are the key prompting the adhesion of viewers to fiction, i.e., their belief that it is real. Live theater is typically designed to alter the state of mind of the audience. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |