Rev Billy Response

So.. I'm obviously biased about this performance.. I was one of the organizers and have been following the Rev for a few years.. it was a thrill to see all those people in Monty 25, and a thrill to hear back from the performers afterwards that they felt fantastic about the show, that they got so much energy from the audience, and that they felt like something had happened in the room, somethign had clicked or twisted or.. that they had gotten through.

But, for me, here are some highlights of the performance:

-the Benedictions: Blessed are you.. the way that the choir responded in their voices to the plac that Billy was in his phrase, the way that their back up singing was a total complement to his preaching, to his praising

-the Sermon: wow. So that was a 20+ minute improvisation! He said afterwards that he thought the sermon went really well, and that he would probably do it two or three more times in the next few performances. He said he came into it with a vague structure of where he woud start and end and a few points in between, but he said he didn't know he was going to relate the post-midterm election situation to post-9/11 til he started actually saying it.

I think the most moving part for me was his discussion of the 714 stories each of us has inside, and the way that these 714 stories have something in them that is true about America, that is completely unmediated and real, and that these are stories of ourselves, our families, our country. It was thinking about racism, the way we all hold that story inside us, that really got to me.. the way that we all have that kind of story, and the way that a story that powerful can actually be let out.. someday.

I also really enjoyed, in the lecture Friday morning, the discussion of breaking through the commodity wall (is that the right term?) which I felt really embodied the art work that I want to do. It's an interesting balance that they described, between the way that doing these performances helps build a community of performers, thereby breaking down the commodity wall, and how the performances themselves are an example of performing that breakdown (both literally, and because, as savitri said, the actions are a performance of community). I would like to wrok through this idea of commodity wall (maybe in my final project for my drawing class?) but I would really like to think or read a lot about it first... I thought it was interesting hwo they answered Fereshteh's question about digital self promotion.. savitri insisting so firmly that now is the time for honest face to face interaction as a method for radical change, and that digital interaction just mediates a real (messy, emotional, necessary) experience that we have been avoiding for too long.

So how can real experience fit into a digital art class? How can I do some sort of final project that uses the idea of real live experience in a.. digital way?