U2 on audience and performance

I got my hands on a two months old Rolling Stone magazine featuring an in-depth interview with Bono, written by Jann S. Wenner. Interestingly, Bono states that very little has been written about performers' psychology. Performers usually try to fill a hole, that's obvious, Bono says and continues: "What's less obvious is that through this insecurity we develop a kind of a third eye or a sort of reptilian sense of what's going on in the room.".

I experienced one of those moments when you realize that what you just read, you've always wanted to know, it's just that you haven't been aware of it until then. The question on what goes on inside a singer's head when performing in front of a crowd of thousands of fans really caught my interest, for some subconscious reason. Perhaps because I sense a paradox when it comes to performing music. On one hand, music has a way of completely absorbing you once you start playing or singing. You can really lose yourself in producing sound and the surroundings basically disapperar. But on the other hand, there are great performers who read their audience brilliantly, artists with great stage presence who are completely aware of what's going on in the back rows of the arena. Robbie Williams is one of them. After a quick search for academic writing on this delicate balance between complete absorbation and complete connectedness with every individual in the arena, I'm no smarter. If anyone can point me to resources, readings or blog postings about this, I'd be grateful!

Further down the article, Bono answers Wenner's question "What are you trying to do with the audience?" like this:

"To lose my own sense of self, self-consciousness - and theirs."

There's an excerpt from the article here (RS 986, November 3, 2005), though not containing the citations above.

New survey on set-top boxes

IT viikko reports on the major reason to Finns not getting a set-top box: many feel it is still unnecessary. This is particularly the case in cable households, according to a telephone survey ordered by the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority. The survey also concludes that respondents owning a set-top box are in general satisfied with the purchase and taking it in use didn't cause any problems for the majority. The usability of the STB:s was lauded by many users.

Eyes on iTV site up and running

Me and my colleagues at MediaCity are currently organizing a conference about iTV. The event will take place in September 27-28th 2006 here in Vasa. The outline is to shed light on the development and production of interactive television programs and the broadcasting of them. Naturally, the focus of the conference also turns to audience testing of iTV (that's what I'm currently working with at the iDTV Lab). For more information, sign up for the news letter at the conference web site.

I'm in good company

About a year now, I've been actively involving my left hand (I'm originally right handed) in everyday tasks, such as writing and using the mouse. The reason to why I started this endevour was an ever increasing pain in my right hand wrist when writing, cooking and so forth. ALong the way, I realized that it is surprisingly easy to transmit the tasks of the right hand to the left one. And it's quite efficiant too being ambidextrous; when I'm scrolling up and down a web page with my left hand, my right one takes notes. The same scenario a couple of years ago would have had my left hand resting all along while my right one did all the working.

Anyhows, since I may be someday a full-fledged ambidextrous I decided to look up the phenomenon and I realized I'm in good company! Kurt Cobain, Leonardo da Vinci and Harry Truman among others were all ambidextrous. According to the wiki site, playing the piano has an impact on this interesting ability. Now there's a benefit of playing my piano I've never come across before!

Tip of the day: loads of short films available on the net to watch at the Sundance Film Festival's site.

EuroITV registration

The early registration is now available for the EuroITV 2006 conference.

Moblogging

There's a moblog about the conference Mediespråk 2006 I'm currently attending.