“In ‘Liveness – performance in a mediatised culture’ Auslander aims to prove how the alleged opposition between live and the mediatised event cannot be maintained in the context of the media society. With reference to Walter Benjamin’s consideration of the new ways of conceiving generated by mass culture, Auslander argues that the merging of live and mediatised forms in contemporary society, on a material level illustrated the untenableness of the performance ontology. Auslander points to Benjamin’s essay: “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction”, in which Benjamin describes how the emergent mass culture causes an overcoming of distance, but at the same time a banishing of aura. In that connection, Benjamin refers to:
“The desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction. Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness, its reproduction.” (Benjamin 1986:31-32)
Auslander’s point is that the alliance contradicted between the mass desire of proximity and reproducible objects, respectively, is directly illustrated in, for instance, the use of giant video screens at music and dance concerts and sporting events that seem to have become the norm in the event-culture of contemporary life. By virtue of the video screens, the audience gets a feeling of being closer to performers – by virtue of the reproducible object, the mediatised event, the feeling of the live event is intensified.”
(Gade and Jerslev 2005: 30 -31)
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