All are dead, electronically feigning life. They fool us into thinking that they are contemporaneous with our lives, that they are entertaining us and connecting us, right now, all together. But they're not. Electronic media separate us, isolate us, make us live in the past. Strip the electronic gloss from your Trinitron and you realize you're staring at the equivalent of crumbling parchment.
Live performance is uncomfortable.
Whether sitting on a hard bench or the plushest, velvet-covered cushion, being in the presence of a performing human is somewhat uncomfortable. It is focused confrontation, not easy co-existence. You can't talk, have a snack, go to the bathroom, or perform any of the myriad acts which make television such a soothing, regressive experience. Immobilized, trapped in the darkness, oppressed by the messiness of possibility, there is unease created by the implicit realization that anything can happen. And it takes work.