So, here we are, back after the summer break, and so it is back to the blog, and just a short musing. Last week was a week of planning, timetabling and, at least in the third semester team, being creative with cable, paper and coloured squares (those of you who were there, know what I am talking about).
This semester, there is to be a workshop about blogging on the third semester. There are so many things one could cover here that it will be a hard job to focus on some key issues.
For example, it could be interesting to discuss the influence of some blogs, that I hesitate to call key and influential, and what they could mean for the democratic process, defending human rights, raising awareness or whatever. The issue of commercial blogs, designed to sell products, written by people employed to write, what at the end of the day is advertising copy, could also be discussed.
I have even seen blogs described as performance, in one of the blogs I read semi-regularly, “What’s in Kelvin’s Head” at www.thurible.net (written by the provost of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow, which is part of the Anglican communion in Scotland – see http://www.thecathedral.org.uk/information/scottish-episcopal-church/ if you want to know what that is!). I enjoy this blog as it is well written, very often funny, not just about religion and the church, and sometimes provides some gossip about a part of Glasgow I used to live in.
But let’s return to the idea as the blog as performance. This intrigues me a bit. I sort of know what he means, after all, you have to take on a role as a blogger, produce something for your audience, take comments and criticisms, and move on to the next blog. It is a nice idea in that it treats the blog as a creative entity. However, I do struggle with the idea a bit….I don’t feel like I am rehearsing at the moment….or maybe I am….comments very, very welcome!
Two years ago, on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (see http://www.edfringe.com/), there were no fewer than 4 plays based on blogs, taking the idea of blog as performance literally. I have not had a chance to search the current programme to see if there are more, or any, this year. I agree with one critic who said that the whole point of a blog is that it is personal (well….you might like to argue with that if talking about commercial ones) and lacks a formal structure. Can, as he said, the “random musings of someone at their computer keyboard” be transferred into good theatre? Now, there is another question for you to contemplate in between writing new Powerpoint slides, writing handbooks and getting ready to perform for the returning and new audiences in two weeks time!
..You asked for a comment regarding the idea of a blog as performance, dear Barbara. Now I haven’t consulted scientific works on the subject in order to establish an objective definition of the concept. But by using my commonsense I could imagine that it orginally and literally speaking means something like ‘through form’. And words and letters is an artform like any other medium. Thus we speak of a performing art in its own right, I should say. And that’s exactly the good part of the blog. Unless you suffers from hypergraphy – an obsessive uncontrolled urge for writing (read this article in Week-end avisen if you should be interested in the phenomenon, which by the way is related to the question of the origins of creativity: http://www.weekendavisen.dk/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080801/IDEER/708010065/-1/ideer) then writing blog must rank along acting, singing, playing, painting etc. etc. and thus potentially speaking be creativly satisfying in the same way. So that’s another good reason for keeping up the blog-writing.. ;-)
I’ll look up that article. I think what you say is really interesting – I certainly find it creatively satisfying!