Public Displays of Connection

We lay, sprawled in a radial effect on the floor, faces illuminated by a familiar LCD glow. Within that tiny apartment in Portland, a revelation was born, a participatory event that did not require paralyzing creativity. We were tired, but we needed each other. So rather than watching a movie or dispersing throughout the room we read the entire screenplay of Hard Rain aloud, including almost all of the stage directions. None of us had seen the movie, we entered it's (web)pages blind and hopeful. Level, we took our best shot at the characters (first noting the actors on imdb). We were gripped by a flat story and mediocre script, why? Was it the beer?

Yes and no. It was the interdependence, the possibility, and innocence.

And it was with this small, glowing coal that we took on our participation challenge. We resolved to reenact a scene, something touching and awkward, some thing the experience would inevitably be.

There is something terribly important about reenactment.

"[Re-enactment] provides a ready-made means of externalizing human plight by embodying and representing them in storied plot and characters. What is the significance of this externalizing tendency in [re-enactment]? It provides, in the first instance, a basis for communion among men. What is 'out there' can be named and shared in a manner beyond the sharing of subjectivity. By the subjectifying of our worlds through externalization we are able, paradoxically enough, to share communally in the nature of internal experience....Fate, the full of the moon, the aether--these and not our unique fears are what join us in common reaction....Sharing, then, and the containment of impulse in beauty--these are possibilities offered by externalization."

--Jerome Bruner

1. Why did you agree to participate in our project?
Mostly, I was curious about the project. But I also thought the message I received asking me to participate was a mistake. So obviously I said yes.
because the kind fellow who asked me is a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend who since my visit in portland has been elevated to straight up friend. this made us closer.

2. How did you feel while we were reenacting the scene?
I felt awkward and a bit tipsy, but less uncomfortable than usual.
like gena rowlands in the film 'opening night'.
A little strange due to the role reversal and because I was doing it in front of people I don't know. But it's kind of, uh.. neat how I get to be posted even though nobody knows who I am.

3. How comfortable do you feel using the internet? Do you participate in any online communities or networks in any way?
i love the internets! I like to read blogs, and occasionally post in online forums about stuff i like (threadless.com for example)
I am fine with the internet. I don't know it very well but I have a myspace, an email and I frequent an online banking resource.
you know, i've often thought about getting one of those foot leaning devices that improves posture but the wrist cushion just seems ostentatious to my mind. i regularly troll the forum for northampton town football club ( thehotelend.cjb.net) and "i cannot tell a lie": i am myspace legit. recently, ijustfindtheinternetboring.com. this is due to my own limitations in e-creativity, though.

I really don't use the internet. Basically just for what I absolutely need, or sometimes for looking up Harley dealerships.

4. What would make you more comfortable and more likely to participate?
having the extra time, and as far as blogging, having a friend to do it with.
It was fun and I would do it again, so probably some sort of good or service.
hallucinogens. or immense personal praise.
If I knew how to use it.

5. What do you wish you could read or find online?
every book in the world!
Ice cream delivery services, or intergalactic travel simulators
I would love to get the advance copies of a lot of the authors I read!

6. Did you learn anything from this experience?
I am really bad at pretending to be people pretending to be people, and writing a bio is difficult.
dignity, always dignity.
I learned I can play a girl...my feminine side just came out.

But this was no at all like the transcendent night in Portland. There was no level playing field. We chose a scene that we loved and none of our participants had the same context, and perhaps this was both our downfall and our success.

We learned that true participation--the kind that results in shared meaning--requires a shared context and understanding. We wondered if we might be imposing our meaning on others; we sought reciprocity and learned that it is not a one sided attempt. Essentially, this challenge asked us to depend upon people outside our own sphere. This vulnerability pushed us to explore how humans create and share meaning in the first place. We had to trust that, eventually, our acts of participation would at least inspire thought. It might not be meaningful for every person, but we hope that something more than just discomfort will linger. Perhaps some wonder at the blind lengths we will go to for another person--even a person we barely know.