Picture an audience… did you picture a cinema or a concert? Did you picture a lot of people in your 'audience'? What If I told you, you're currently my audience, you're my virtual audience. A single person sitting on there phone or laptop or iPad, alone or with people surrounding you, you're my audience. Did you picture yourself when I asked you to picture an audience? Was this a lot of picturing?
Take for instance the leading inventors of the moving pictures, the Lumiere brothers. They had their first premiere screening on the 22nd of March 1895, this took place in Paris and was in front of an audience of 200 people. Each film was approximately 17 meters long and was 50 seconds long when hand cranked through a projector. This screening showcased 10 short films created by the Lumiere brothers and is seen to be very influential in the creation of film today.
From 1895 to 2019 we now have the endless screenings of multiple films, on billions of devices around the world. Streaming content has become the new way to view anything from funny cat videos to full movies or documentaries, and quite ironically we can simply type into a google search engine and watch those exact short films showcased in 1895.
I become an audience to any streaming service I use. I frequently audience the platforms Netflix, YouTube and Stan. I find myself streaming these in the comfort of my own home , in the car (as a passenger) or on public transport.
Being apart of the audience of these films is usually relaxing. Unlike being part of a cinema audience, I'm able to lay down, pause and play the film as I please and with access to hundreds of films and tv shows I can repeat this over every day.
It is however sitting there by myself where I wish sometimes we had moments where something was as unbelievable as those first moving pictures in 1895. It seems as though the reactions that audience had, are only to what we may experience in our world today when our favourite protagonist gets killed off in the first 4 episodes of a series, or when half the population is turned to dust by a guy with some fancy crystals, these truly unbelievable moments are usually now endured alone.
The sense of physical community I believe the world has lost due to the overwhelming access to becoming a single audience.
It is however that our technological advancements have created a whole new base for community, in which social media has created a platform for online blogs, forums websites and pages, where community has changed from physical to virtual. It’s a new environment and unrecognisable compared to 1895, but its how the world has come to be. As a single audience, we see that our experience can be mirrored by other single audiences even though you were dispersed from each other and nor at the same time viewing, we will all have some common ground. Its here where we start conversation and thus community.
Ill finish by saying instead of picturing, live in the moment, watch, stream and listen to anything, with friends, family and your pets, discuss your frustrations online to other fellow frustrators, go to school, work or family events and start conversation.
Conversation is what will keep the community alive and conversation is what will keep the physical audience from disappearing into our thoughts.
Until Next Time,
Reference List:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFkSjdaqbyE - Accessed 12.03.2019
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2019/01-02/creation-of-the-motion-picture-lumiere-brothers/ - Accessed 12.03.2019
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lumiere-brothers - Accessed 13.03.2019
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