the audience as seeker
Note: These are propositions. They are stated in a language of certainty, but they are far from being certain …
The audience as seeker.
What do they want? What is it that they want to know, or that they are seeking to know?
If we make the object of the encounter that it is their responsibility to know … their disbelief gets in the way. So they have to suspend their disbelief in order to engage with the encounter.
(Is this circular?)
How could you motivate a certain kind of encounter, and foreground in that (encounter) a certain kind of question; the question being, how are you going to make sense of this?
We are asking them to forget what they know, or expect, or assume …
But Colin thinks it is not about forgetting, but rather ‘introducing some kind of doubt’. That you’re not sure … and in order to pursue the encounter further you are going to have to make a choice.
Which choice?
What needs to be repaired? It is about betrayal and trust.
A mismatch with reality.
They need to be confronted with something in terms of responsibility … in them (and us) dealing with making up their minds.
Their disbelief of/in the possibility of knowing GETS IN THE WAY.
We can know things we don’t understand.
Their belief (about the ‘object’, or the ‘other’) is an obstacle to knowing.
The film Suture makes the audience self-conscious about how they are making up their mind. They are coming into stark opposition with the film in terms of what makes sense.
How to set this up - to create an obstacle to the belief.
You are forcing them (the audience) to think about how they know things.
It’s an epistemological dance (not a good look at all)!
Estrangement.
The mismatch.
(from discussions on 21 July)
