Virtual Residency Day Nineteen, Meditation on Place

I have been considering the idea of place because this event is taking place in so many places. In formal performance terms, "place" is the locus of action: the proscenium. But in this event, there is no single prescenium. This is a profound relationship shift between actor and audience with interesting implications for modeling alternative worlds.

I am here on my island. I have invited musicians to participate from all over the world. They will do so without leaving their "home" place. There are "on the ground" events that I have designed that have already begun or are being planned in Italy and India. This is the case, even tho I am still "in place" in Maine. The central hub location to co-ordinate these places is here on my computer in my tiny office. That hub-place is experienced by people who visit this site in "their" places, at various locations and each of those places possesses diverse characteristics.

The days of the concerts, the events will take place from various points of origin as well as on line live within the "place" created by TalkShoe.com. Events will be attended by listeners who are invisible from the place of the performers, as each of the performers will be from eachother. The TalkShow site will allow people to talk, listen and write/chat simultaneously or in various combinations, regardless of thier point of origin, creating a secondary place within a place for all participants in one electronic "place" that will duplicate itself more or less identically to numerous other "places" where listeners will be present, experiencing events in the unique cultuaral place int heir minds that they have brought with them to the day.

The effect of this idea, may ripple out to others who have no direct "place" relationship to these events, who will transform it into even more "places". The purpose of networking all these "places" is to avoid spewing jet fuel all over the earth and yet have the chance to connect to many people in a direct and inexpensive manner; to create a modified version of the "place" present behavior is making of this earth.

If all art is an act in defiance of war and death and if this particular project is an experiment in response to global warming, then the final "place" of this chinese box of "places" is probably spiritual and impersonal. Many cultures believe it is possible to pray for peace or the good of the planet. So chalk this one up as one more prayer to some other place with some other power than we have around here.