As designers we are
not yet sure how to
readily accessible. That is probably why most noncommercial
webcast content (or Web TV) is
tripe—and some of the commercial stuff is obviously tripe too.
Personally, I do not count the
“ferrets channel” in this negative judgement; those creatures
clearly know how to have a good
time. But, frankly, I do wonder
why so many guys who can
afford the technologies to webcast cannot afford shirts.
But there are also more and
more skilled performers seeking
out new audiences, hoping for a
global reach for their craft.
Certainly, the DJs we talked to
see webcasting as offering new
opportunities for reaching new
audiences. As someone who has
been actively researching computer-mediated communication
for more than a decade, I’m fascinated by the use of webcasting
to perform live shows. That’s
in part because every DJ I have
talked to who performs live
shows (and even radio DJs, to a
certain extent) talks about how
they “read” the crowd, garner a
sense of the energy in the place,
and manipulate its ebbs and
flows with music to amp up the
crowd, maintain a pace, or slow
it down. DJs seem to see themselves as the puppet-masters of
crowd energy, playing with the
dynamics of movement on the
dance floor. But this takes close
monitoring. Arguably, it takes
co-presence—being there to see
and feel the energy. So how does
this happen with a webcast? Is
it possible?
In the world of videoconfer-encing, we have been dealing
with connection and communication for an age, but the art of
creating a DJ show through webcasting brings a different set of
challenges. Audience members
come and go; there is no organizational or relationship imperative to stay engaged, the way
there is in a work meeting. Most
of the excellent work on video-conferencing in education or
corporate settings therefore has
little bearing on the situation
in which DJs find themselves.
The bulk of this work describes
a technology that has a role in a
very differently prescribed set of
social relationships.
However, some ideas that are
obviously of relevance involve
how small features in simple
interfaces allow us to create a
sense of the presence of others.
A video feed clearly and explicitly shows that someone else
is there and what they are up
to—hence the success of video
cameras for surveillance. But
more subtle cues can also tell us
someone is watching or has been
there. In the physical world this
may be the sound of a footfall
or the depression in a cushion.
Online, there are the sounds of
someone signing on or leaving a
chat. Textual changes to a webpage or a wiki indicate someone
has been there and left a mark.
It is amazing how these small,
subtle cues make someone who
is very far away feel close to
you. This sounds stupid until
you have experienced it. I know
how a line of text on a screen
that reads “ 1 view” can feel like a
touch on the shoulder. The first
time I saw the “ 1 view” indicator on a picture I had posted on
Flickr, I felt like someone had
reached through the computer
screen and touched me. In a
flash, I went from comfort zone
to twilight zone—someone out
there on the Internet was looking at the picture I uploaded
create co-presence
and a crowd out of
a disparate group
of individuals with
webcams, their worlds
connected only by
video feeds. These
performances are a
way for us to think
about the construction
of audience and the
creation of crowd.
30 seconds ago. And in that
moment I thought: I don’t know
who that someone is or why they
are looking at my picture. I felt
oddly exposed, though clearly
that ghostly touch was from
someone far away.
Humans are strongly attuned
to registering the slightest of
cues. And we will ascribe meaning to those cues. The most
abstract indicators become
signs with potential for rich
social meaning. It is perhaps
this tendency that ensures the
continuing financial success of
horoscopes, crystal-ball gazing,
and the reading of tea leaves.