I’ve been thinking this week about doing things live. Hearing music live, attending a yoga class in person, going to a work meeting in an actual office…
Even live-on-a-device is different from a recording. How is it different? Can you articulate the reasons live / live stream / recorded each feel different to you?
We’ve had a lot of these conversations since the pandemic: What’s more convenient? What does research say about…mental health, carbon footprint, etc.? What’s cheapest? But today I’m interested in going deeper, to a really human level of experience, even call it your artistic interpretation.
I don’t want to suppose that ‘live’ is necessarily better for the purpose of this discussion either! I do a ton of stuff online that has a lot of value. But I’m looking less for rational reasons and more for sensory experiences, philosophical understandings, or anecdotal evidence.
I think it's fairly well established that all humans, be they introvert or extrovert, need to connect with others. Even those who think they prefer to do everything online, like booking holidays or appointments, will wither emotionally if they screen out all human contact. The phenomenon of online interaction is addictive, like alcohol or gambling, and sucks everyone in to some extent. Ironic that something that is meant to connect you with others can have the opposite effect. Balance and discipline are important. If you can enjoy the good parts and avoid the bad, that's great. I've got a feeling that AI will be a game-changer. As people start to lose their livelihoods and human creativity is marginalised by the march of the robots, we might collectively come to our senses and start the fightback. Long live the collective experience: live gigs, live theatre, all that!
This is a weird one, and may not be entirely anything related to what you're thinking about, but it made me think of the fact that I get more enjoyment out of watching a film if I know others are watching it too, compared to watching alone. But I don't just mean watching with my wife or watching at the cinema with a group of others, I mean a kind of disconnected live experience, where you're watching something on your own but know that others are also watching that same thing at the same time.
E.g. in the pre streaming days, watching a film that's scheduled at a certain time on tv. Lots of other people are watching it even though you're not connected to them in any way. I always kinda got nice cosy feels knowing that.
Same with Livestream on YouTube, although there the chat gives you that actual presence of others.
Interesting topic, Kate, as always. I am torn in a lot of ways, because I think the pandemic introduced us to a lot of time-saving and more efficient ways of living and working, such as work meetings on Teams or other platforms and groceries/everything delivered via an app, to name a couple. I am quite an introvert and also dislike unnecessary mundane tasks, such as meetings and going grocery shopping. I got accustomed to ordering pretty much everything online during the pandemic, and I've hardly done any physical shopping since. I also attended online lectures during my Masters studies given by lecturers from Universities all over the world.
But the things I missed most when they were unavailable were the sorts of things you mention here.
Nothing online could compete with a live, in-person Yoga class, and although I did join a couple of classes on Zoom, I never felt the way I do when I walk out of the Yoga studio. Similarly, the first live concert I went to was so wonderful that I could have cried! Just being surrounded by other people singing and celebrating the band was something I can't even describe (as anyone who enjoys live music will get). I think the same goes for the reopening of art galleries and museums, sitting in a cafe and reading, and one of the biggest things I missed: visiting the library to access books to read.
So all this to say that perhaps the virtual life has its uses - and its limitations. I have 'met' some wonderful people online (yourself included!) whom I likely would never have met otherwise because of physical distance and time constraints. But there's never going to be a replacement for human connection in real life, and I think this is never more clear than when accessing art or attending any kind of group event.
This is a really interesting thing to ponder... for me, it’s hard to separate out my own work life, it having been remote since 2020, when the U.S. entered lockdown. The company I work for is small, 17 people, and the team I’m on is comprised of just me and one other person. I have 2-3 work meetings per month on average, and some of them are with cameras off. So, essentially reduced to phone calls.
Add on that my family and I are thousands of miles from loved ones, and in the last year or so, it has really started to hit me just how isolated I feel. I spend eight hours each M-F not connecting with anyone face-to-face. And because I of course need to be working those 40 hours per week, it isn’t all that feasible to prioritize friend-making or community-finding, not when also raising a toddler.
That’s all to say, really: I can’t recall a time pre-pandemic where the craving to exist among others was as sharp as it is now. The craving to connect, and not just through a comment thread, or a Slack channel.
And I think that that’s what live performances can offer. There’s a texture that it gives to life that our screens just can’t give us. It’s something I feel like I definitely took for granted when I was younger.
I think it's fairly well established that all humans, be they introvert or extrovert, need to connect with others. Even those who think they prefer to do everything online, like booking holidays or appointments, will wither emotionally if they screen out all human contact. The phenomenon of online interaction is addictive, like alcohol or gambling, and sucks everyone in to some extent. Ironic that something that is meant to connect you with others can have the opposite effect. Balance and discipline are important. If you can enjoy the good parts and avoid the bad, that's great. I've got a feeling that AI will be a game-changer. As people start to lose their livelihoods and human creativity is marginalised by the march of the robots, we might collectively come to our senses and start the fightback. Long live the collective experience: live gigs, live theatre, all that!
Hey Kate.
This is a weird one, and may not be entirely anything related to what you're thinking about, but it made me think of the fact that I get more enjoyment out of watching a film if I know others are watching it too, compared to watching alone. But I don't just mean watching with my wife or watching at the cinema with a group of others, I mean a kind of disconnected live experience, where you're watching something on your own but know that others are also watching that same thing at the same time.
E.g. in the pre streaming days, watching a film that's scheduled at a certain time on tv. Lots of other people are watching it even though you're not connected to them in any way. I always kinda got nice cosy feels knowing that.
Same with Livestream on YouTube, although there the chat gives you that actual presence of others.
That's just what came to mind when reading this.
Have a great weekend.
Interesting topic, Kate, as always. I am torn in a lot of ways, because I think the pandemic introduced us to a lot of time-saving and more efficient ways of living and working, such as work meetings on Teams or other platforms and groceries/everything delivered via an app, to name a couple. I am quite an introvert and also dislike unnecessary mundane tasks, such as meetings and going grocery shopping. I got accustomed to ordering pretty much everything online during the pandemic, and I've hardly done any physical shopping since. I also attended online lectures during my Masters studies given by lecturers from Universities all over the world.
But the things I missed most when they were unavailable were the sorts of things you mention here.
Nothing online could compete with a live, in-person Yoga class, and although I did join a couple of classes on Zoom, I never felt the way I do when I walk out of the Yoga studio. Similarly, the first live concert I went to was so wonderful that I could have cried! Just being surrounded by other people singing and celebrating the band was something I can't even describe (as anyone who enjoys live music will get). I think the same goes for the reopening of art galleries and museums, sitting in a cafe and reading, and one of the biggest things I missed: visiting the library to access books to read.
So all this to say that perhaps the virtual life has its uses - and its limitations. I have 'met' some wonderful people online (yourself included!) whom I likely would never have met otherwise because of physical distance and time constraints. But there's never going to be a replacement for human connection in real life, and I think this is never more clear than when accessing art or attending any kind of group event.
This is a really interesting thing to ponder... for me, it’s hard to separate out my own work life, it having been remote since 2020, when the U.S. entered lockdown. The company I work for is small, 17 people, and the team I’m on is comprised of just me and one other person. I have 2-3 work meetings per month on average, and some of them are with cameras off. So, essentially reduced to phone calls.
Add on that my family and I are thousands of miles from loved ones, and in the last year or so, it has really started to hit me just how isolated I feel. I spend eight hours each M-F not connecting with anyone face-to-face. And because I of course need to be working those 40 hours per week, it isn’t all that feasible to prioritize friend-making or community-finding, not when also raising a toddler.
That’s all to say, really: I can’t recall a time pre-pandemic where the craving to exist among others was as sharp as it is now. The craving to connect, and not just through a comment thread, or a Slack channel.
And I think that that’s what live performances can offer. There’s a texture that it gives to life that our screens just can’t give us. It’s something I feel like I definitely took for granted when I was younger.