Part of the "Painting on the Edge" show at the Federation Gallery (Canadian Federation of Artists) August 16 - Sept. 4, 2016
Cocktail Party Selective Attention Predilection Self-Absorption Manipulation Missing the Beat.
Tuning our attention to just one voice from the multitude.
The Cocktail Party Effect.
Tuning in the Single Voice and Tuning out the Others.
Immediate detection of matters of Importance
Your own name.
Singular attention to a detail while missing all the rest.
Isolation.
From PsyBlog:
'For psychologists the ‘cocktail party effect’ is our impressive and under-appreciated ability to tune our attention to just one voice from a multitude. At a party when bored with our current conversational partner — and for the compulsive eavesdropper — allowing the aural attention to wander around the room is a handy trick.
Perhaps only the most recidivist eavesdroppers are aware how special this ability is. But even they might be surprised — and worried — by just how much we can miss in the voices we decide to tune out.'
Wiki's interpretation of the Cocktail Party Effect:
'The cocktail party effect is the phenomenon of being able to focus one's auditory attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli, much the same way that a partygoer can focus on a single conversation in a noisy room.[1][2] This effect is what allows most people to "tune into" a single voice and "tune out" all others. It may also describe a similar phenomenon that occurs when one may immediately detect words of importance originating from unattended stimuli, for instance hearing one's name in another conversation.[3][4]'
T.S. Eliot wrote his play The Cocktail Party in 1948.
Wiki says: '.....The play starts out seeming to be a light satire of the traditional British drawing room comedy. As it progresses, however, the work becomes a darker philosophical treatment of human relations. As in many of Eliot's works, the play uses absurdist elements to expose the isolation of the human condition. In another recurring theme of Eliot's plays, the Christian martyrdom of the mistress character is seen as a sacrifice that permits the predominantly secular life of the community to continue.'
Wiki definition of Cocktail Party:
'A cocktail party is a party at which cocktails are served. It is sometimes called a cocktail reception. A cocktail party organized for purposes of social or business networking is called a mixer.
A cocktail hour is sometimes used by managers of hotels and restaurants as a means of attracting patrons between 4 pm and 6 pm.
Some events, such as wedding receptions, are preceded by a cocktail hour. During the cocktail hour, guests socialize while drinking and eating appetizers. Organizers of these events use the cocktail hour to occupy guests between related events and to reduce the number of guests who arrive late.
Although it has been said that the inventor of the cocktail party was Alec Waugh of London,[1] an article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press in May 1917 credited its invention to a certain Mrs. Julius S. Walsh Jr. of St. Louis, Missouri. Mrs. Walsh invited 50 guests to her house on a Sunday at high noon for a one-hour affair. "The party scored an instant hit," the newspaper declared, and stated that within weeks cocktail parties had become "a St. Louis institution".[2] It is however unlikely such an obscure individual could be the progenitor of the cocktail party.
Alec Waugh noted that the first cocktail party in England was hosted in 1924 by war artist Christopher Nevinson.'