Presence and Live Visual Performance

This chapter will provide a contextual overview of current discourse in presence studies and offer insight into the subjective experience of Live Visual performance (LVP), predominately from an audience perspective. Presence affects both the physiological and the psychological. The extent to which our culture, senses and biological limitations affect presence (in which order and which magnitude) is a long-debated subject with a linage as far back as the 6th century and not one the author will attempt to resolve in this contribution. Rather, the goal of this chapter is to explore what role presence has in LVP and begin to explore, alongside its practical and commercial uses, what needs presence might fulfil for the audience.