Thomas R. Moore

Michael Beil’s scenic composition Hide to Show (2021) thematizes a basic principle of social media, namely hiding mistakes, failures, or any vulnerable matters with the purpose of simulating an ever-perfect, active, and successful image and profile. Beil’s piece, with memes and memefication as a guiding principle and compositional format, plays along the hyperreal boundary between live performance and digital re-representation. The audience is continuously misled and often left guessing between real and digital, confusing a real body with its projected simulation and live performed music with a (pre)recording. Perhaps more misleading, the live music and vocals are frequently processed in real time, too. Mistakes, but also individual interpretations and authentic appropriations of the piece are smoothed out or erased. Beil’s composition may realize with this ‘fixing’ technique one ideal of today’s live performer: guaranteed perfectionism on stage. In this article, a performer-researcher from Hide to Show and a sociologist of culture and politics analyze the possibilities and limitations of digital art and Internet culture found in Beil’s work. What (new) requirements are demanded of the live performers and technicians? And how does digital simulation affect the artistic experience and aesthetics of contemporary art music and of social life itself?