As a member of the public myself, I find we are constantly being bombarded with questions throughout the day via the media which generally go unanswered and even unnoticed. Whilst dedicating a little of my thought to this fact I started to think about the question of audience an issue which has been readily open to discussion in recent seminar sessions.My thoughts now ambushed by theories of the audience, I succumbed to asking the question ‘who is the audience?’ These thoughts I latterly discovered would not easily leave me, sitting next to me throughout my journey and originally coming to me when the lights fused suddenly on the bus.
Being temporarily plunged into total darkness, I at first sat their bewildered but soon became accustomed to the dark and the feeling of utter sedation which quickly followed. Supposedly I felt like this because I was know longer an object of speculation from the audience. Who were beginning to jostle angrily in their seats, awaiting the return of the light to bring them from their shadows and gloom.
Feeling slightly bemused as to why I should feel so at ease in the darkness as apposed to the light became another question which stifled me. Does it really take the loss of one simple element such as light to make people feel a little more confident in front of an audience who had momentarily lost their sight? Or was it just me?
Ebbing and flowing within the currents of my conscious, this question would not easily wash away.
I know as English citizens we are renowned for being quite a reserved race of individuals and the term ‘keeping an upper lip’ leaps to mind when I generalise the public of England, but why are we so self contained to the max? Why does every individual seem to hide behind a visage of some kind?
This question has assured me that the audience is in fact all around us shadowing every minute of our daily lives and forcing all audience members into concealing certain characteristics from exterior examination. Only when we retreat to the confines of our rooms do we tend to leave the audience outside our door at all other times however it seems we are constantly being scrutinized.
Is it maybe the issue of being seen via the public eye every single day which makes us shy away from public examination? I wonder if people would feel they could maybe express themselves better to an audience sat in darkness much like actors who look into a darkened crowd. Thus issue leads me to my final thought would we all be a lot more confident and unafraid of the audience if our vision was obliterated and the world went black?
rachelgibbs Said:
on November 14, 2007 at 11:40 am
That’s a really good thought, I like the idea of an audience becoming more sedated when we aren’t under pressure to ‘behave’ as such under ‘normal’ conventions of society. This could also be true within a big audience however. If you are lost within a huge crowd of people, do you technically become annonymous?