The flashmob is intended to operate almost entirely sans pretense. As such, performers do not necessarily know much of anything about their audience and fellow performers nor how they will react. Perhaps the audience, caught off guard, will merely see rather than observe; ‘observe’ denotes registering the act as in any way significant whereas ‘see’ denotes that which is merely visually discerned (hence the etymological and grammatical difference between ‘seen’ and ‘scene’). Alternatively, the audience may even respond by joining in the act thus blurring the line between performer and observer. For many flashmob performers, particularly engaging in some sort of a more political flashmob, the interaction between performer and observer in both real time and real space is by necessity nothing other than what is and in fact quite real as an act of dissent or protest. What makes the flashmob ultimately fit within the realm of what Osipovich argues is a theatrical performance is that “an awareness on the part of the observer of the pretense”, or for the flashmob the pretense of no pretensions, does indeed occur when the audience discerns the act as being performed. Yet, flashmob performers are not merely performers in the sense that “all the world is a stage” precisely because of this antithetical pretense of no pretensions. In the absence of pretension, the rhetoric of the theatrical performance I have chosen to stage will operate as a statement rather than assertion. In so doing, my belief is that in a truly democratic society we make political statements, fashion statements, artistic statements—rather that artistic assertions, fashion assertions, or political assertions. Staging the act in this way I create a work of Rhetoric, understood as the art of effectual discourse, rather than a work of rhetoric, understood as bombastic display of dictation. In their observation or participation or even lack thereof, the audience become active participants in the performers’ discourse instead of complacent consumers. The work therefore fashions a truly democratic society.
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