Cross-Media Audience Experience: Objectivity Through Subjectivity

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of a fragment of multimedia performance by the Japanese theatre company Gekidan Kaitaisha in 2004. The piece involved a performer physically responding to recorded images, displayed on a nearby laptop, of military surveillance footage of the bombing of a village in Afghanistan. As an observer of the piece I was shocked both at its content and at the strength of my emotional response. In this article I deconstruct my subjective response to the event, in order to understand the mechanics of the performance.