This era of ubiquitous cellphones presents a distinct problem for the performance-based artist.  I’ve always viewed the point of the performance to be the mutual creation of felt energy : formed by all present experiencing the movements and sounds, occurring and occupying a specific moment and place.

Once the glow of the screen is held aloft, the intimate pact of focused attention that shapes the unrepeatable energy between audience and performer becomes severed.  There is a specter in the room, of that digital world which swallows up any given moment by way of an implicit possibility of viral fame and its monetary promise.  The unseen, disembodied hordes who could hypothetically view and approve of the captured song or dance or poem are then dangerously poised to usurp the role of audience which rightly, only belongs to the People truly present.  Distracting from that living interchange defuses the power of witness as agency.  Killing the shared intensity of a moment also kills the art.