Technician Versus Performer / Real Life

Film, TV & Animation

• George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. When making the original Star Wars films, it was clear to all involved that Lucas was more invested in getting the technical details right first, and crafting an emotionally resonant story second; his constant revisions of the original trilogy has borne this out. Spielberg, while a gifted technician in his own right, is chiefly interested in pulling out all the stops to wrench the emotions of his audience. Their collaborations on Indiana Jones shows both their approaches at work.
  • Also George Lucas and mentor/friend Francis Ford Coppola, a more emotional director who (as opposed to Lucas) loved working with actors. After the box office failure of Lucas' first feature, the cold science fiction Dystopia film THX 1138, Coppola challenged Lucas to do a warmer, more human movie, so Lucas made American Graffiti a semi-autobiographical Coming of Age comedy to prove he could, and it became a hit.
  • Lucas' Star Wars universe is closer to the performer end of the spectrum compared to the technician Star Trek universe. The former has a for-its-time and in-some-areas gritty Used Future look and both the dark side and the light side of the Force favor instinct over reason, compared to the rational and utopian Star Trek.
  • Going off of the above example, Steven Spielberg has a performer ethos compared to the technician mindset of his friend Stanley Kubrick. Compare Kubrick's cerebral, visually dramatic, detached 2001: A Space Odyssey to Spielberg's equally visually dramatic but warmer and more emotionally resonant Jurassic Park. Both deal with similar themes regarding the potential consequences of modern science and technological innovation, but are handled totally differently.
  • Martin Scorsese is unique for being both a technician and a performer. He's known like Lucas for extensively preparing, storyboarding his films, and treating the production of a film as mainly an exercise in gathering material for editing (which Scorsese insists is the most important part of any film-making endeavor). On the other hand he's also known for being very visually lush, very intense use of music, and being very actor friendly.
  • The Star Wars sequels arguably reflect this distinction in J. J. Abrams and Rian Johnson's respective styles. Abram's "mystery box" storytelling, a strategy hinging on setting up a major revelation (which may or may not have a definite answer planned beforehand) and liberal use of nostalgia is closer to the spontaneous style of a performer. Johnson, in contrast, has a technician's fondness for deliberately subverting audience expectations, answering mysteries with Anti-Climax and unreveals (both in The Last Jedi and his other works), and taking a more deconstructive approach with his entry in the series, as well as subtly needling his audience for their nostalgia.
• Out of other contemporary filmmakers, Christopher Nolan is most certainly a technician: a master at using all sorts of complex practical effects to tell intricately plotted stories, but who is also accused by detractors of prioritizing these complex plots over interesting characters or emotionally engaging story elements. While Nolan agrees with Quentin Tarantino on hot-button topics such as film stock preservation and the value of old movies, Tarantino's style leans heavily towards performer, with his bold, often controversial experimentation with tone and style, which tend to elicit big emotional reactions from viewers, and even in his extremely visible passion for movies (in contrast to Nolan's more reserved personality).
  • David Fincher and Wes Anderson are also both closer to technicians, given their carefully managed visuals and meticulous attention to detail, although Anderson's visual richness and interest in emotion and nostalgia makes him closer to a blend of these two styles. David Lynch and Terrence Malick are both performers: they tend to be visually focused, producing films that do not conform to conventional narratives (whether that's Malick's loose plotting or Lynch's pure surrealism); Lynch has even noted that his films are sometimes assembled from seemingly unconnected ideas or scenes that he simply thought could work together well.
• Technician Al Pacino compared to performer Marlon Brando. Al Pacino said that he would work his ass off in acting... only to come short of what Brando could do in his sleep. Brando was also famous for refusing to memorize lines and often had cue cards on set or just improvised.
• The Academy Awards for 2013 see two front runners emerge: the moving story of 12 Years a Slave, featuring excellent performances, heavily favoured by the actors and writers, and the technical masterpiece Gravity, boasting the best visual effects and use of 3D seen to date. Important to note that 12 Years features a large star-studded cast, whereas Gravity merely has 3 actors and 3 voices, with the majority of the work being done by the crew. Gravity won 7 awards (Best Director, Best Cinematography, Film Editing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects, Best Original Score and Sound Mixing), but 12 Years took home Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and the grand prize, Best Picture.
  • 2010 had a similar race between Inception and The King's Speech. The former won the awards for Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects and Cinematography. The latter won Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture.
• Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate is a stern warning for any filmmaker who takes the Technician route too far. He was so obsessed over getting the period details right and perfecting the (admittedly spectacular) cinematography, he neglected to notice that the actual story wasn't strong enough to justify the nearly six-hour running time.
• Classic Disney Shorts vs. Looney Tunes: Disney had more principled, sweeping, and painstakingly crafted animation, while Warner Bros. cartoons were more improvisational, snappy, and willing to step out of the pack. Interestingly, their audiences tend to be drawn for opposite reasons; fans of Disney like their strong emotional feel, whereas fans of Looney Tunes like their down-to-earth wit.
  • Within Warner Bros., there was a rivalry between technician Chuck Jones, whose cartoons are based on precise timing and attention to detail, and performer Bob Clampett, whose shorts are filled to the brim with exuberant action and inventive visuals.
• With regards to filmmaking, the likes of Oscar Bait tend to be on the technician side — out to please critics and win awards. Blockbusters meanwhile lean towards performer side — emphasis on spectacle and pleasing audiences. Critical Dissonance exists for this reason — blockbusters will usually have higher scores with audiences than critics, and vice versa.
• It's often argued that there are only two type of memoirs written by actors: One that focuses heavily on method and the interplay between costars (Technician: A Life in Parts by Bryan Cranston), and the other is what it's liked to be secured in a safety harness and dragged behind a car for 200 feet (Performer: If Chins Could Kill by Bruce Campbell).
• Television in The '50s had two major players in comedy: Lucille Ball (I Love Lucy) and Jackie Gleason (The Honeymooners). While both were actors and thus performers to an extent, the differences were in their approach: Ball was firmly on the "Technician" side, rehearsing extensively, almost incessantly, before shooting, always sticking tightly to the script and almost never improvising. She was also known to be quite serious, even dour, in her private life, firmly believing that she was only funny because her character was written that way. Gleason was much more of a "Performer", disliking rehearsals (the rest of the Honeymooners cast often rehearsed without him) and frequently improvising. He was also a much more jovial, jocular personality when the cameras were off (although he had his demons).
• Monty Python was known for the creative tensions between John Cleese (technician) who would rigorously analyse scripts and Terry Jones (Performer) who tended just to go with what felt emotionally right. When it came to making the films - the technician role was taken over by Terry Gilliam who tended to clash with Jones over the direction of Monty Python and the Holy Grail because of this - they eventually compromised with Gilliam overseeing the technical elements of camera placements and lighting and Jones concentrating on working with and directing the actors. Gilliam's concentration on the technical elements meant that his films are often notorious Troubled Productions, as he doesn't seem to be as good as keeping the rest of the production on track.
• Film acting versus stage acting in a lot of regards. Stage acting requires a lot more technical skill - from projection, diction, the ability to be big without being over the top and having to do an entire performance in one show (often multiple days and nights in a row). Film acting is a lot more instinctual, with a lot of subtleties and more room for improvisation (improv is done in theatre too but in a controlled way), while also requiring the focus to continually deliver after multiple takes. The result is that some screen actors lack the presence to be good on the stage and that some theatre actors are too big for film work (Laurie Metcalfe for example prefers the stage for this reason). And there are of course plenty of actors who can do both.
• Despite being owned by the same company, Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar have this dynamic going on to some extent. Broadly speaking, Walt Disney Animation is the Technician, with its movies being visually spectacular but often heavily reliant on formula as far as narrative goes, and less willing to innovate. Pixar, on the other hand, is the Performer. It has a reputation for telling interesting and original stories from unusual perspectives, which often fall outside the stereotypical "Disney formula".
• In the early days of Disney, the brothers Walt and Roy were the performer and the technician, respectively. Walt handled the creative side of the company while Roy handled the business side.
• Disney's two biggest competitors in the animated film market during the 70's and 80's, Ralph Bakshi and Don Bluth, with the former being the performer and the latter being the technician. Bakshi made films with mostly very small budgets and teams, often resorting to techniques he wasn't very fond of like rotoscoping to get them out the door, but to him, the animation wasn't as important as the social critiques or the atmosphere, not caring if the unconventional narrative structures or adult content was off-putting to people. Bluth, meanwhile, left Disney with the express purpose of making new animated films that matched the technical achievements of the old Disney movies before Walt's death, and they were made in such a way as to appeal to all audiences, even with the Nightmare Fuel and Tear Jerker moments throughout.
  • As for other outsider animators of the time, Richard Williams was even more of a technician than Bluth, animating almost exclusively on ones as he got more experienced and spending 30 years of his life trying to make a movie that would push analog 2D animation to its absolute limit, being unconcerned if these scenes of technical prowess actually contributed to the story or characters, so long as it showed off the animators' skills.

Fine Art

• In terms of illustrative painting, look no further than J.C. Leyendecker verses Norman Rockwell. Both highly respected painters who created cover illustrations for the Saturday evening post, Leyendecker was a Technician who'd do practice painting after practice painting to prep for the finished piece while the Performer Rockwell would copy photo compositions to achieve his pieces. In the end Leyendecker would come out with idealized paintings that established superior technical style but often felt less personable◊. Rockwell's by comparison used his artistic knowledge to craft intimate and human paintings at the expense of technical skill◊. In the end, the masses regard Rockwell more than Leyendecker for creating quintessential American Icons, while most studying the arts say the inverse with many an artist praising Leyendecker for his technical genius.
• Artists Boris Vallejo and Frank Frazetta present another interesting take on the subject, as both have done illustrations for the sword and sorcery fantasy genre and their styles are often compared with one another by fans to determine which of them is the better draughtsman. While Vallejo's painting technique is impeccable and nearly photorealistic in its approach, his characters often come off as stiff and plastic, making the composition look very artificial. On the other hand, the largely self-taught Frazetta tends to do much better with gesture drawing, using his knowledge of athletics and the human body in motion ^note Vallejo was a bodybuilder while Frazetta was an avid baseball player to add an element of dynamism to his paintings, making them appear more lifelike and emotional in spite of the occasional error (ranging from subtle errors in scale to a demon's sword-swinging arms being blocked by its own horns; see here and here). The differences between both are examined in detail in this article.

Literature

• Compare the dense, cerebral, ornate, flowery writing style employed by William Faulkner with the sparse, minimalistic writing style of Ernest Hemingway. Both have a claim to the title of "greatest American author of the 20th Century," and both can be considered Performers to each others Technicians. Faulkner wrote in a variety of styles while Hemingway only wrote in one, Faulkner wrote both short stories and novels, while Hemingway wrote mostly short stories and only a few complete novels. On the other hand, Faulkner was known for being very self-effacing while Hemingway gloried in being a public celebrity and known name.
• In Spain, at The Cavalier Years, Miguel de Cervantes was a technician, mediocre playwright and poet that wanted to establish rules in playwriting so every author in Spain could publish without fear of being arrested and set a standard for quality in entertainment. Felix Lope de Vega, the performer, was an accomplished natural poet and incredible successful playwright who was convinced Viewers Are Morons and that they must create art with Lowest Common Denominator because that is what the public wants. (He stated it in verse, it’s awesome). Cervantes had serious disagreements with Lope de Vega that at the time seemed pure envy. Cervantes died in poverty and oblivion, while Lope de Vega was always popular and loved. Now Lope de Vega is recognized as one of Spain’s The Cavalier Years geniuses, while Cervantes has been Vindicated by History by an interesting experiment he did: the first modern novel, Don Quixote.
• Among Science Fiction writers, those with harder-science inclinations tend to be Technicians who are most interested in using their fiction to make a legitimate contribution to scientific theory. Those on the softer side tend to be Performers who just want to use the tropes of Science Fiction in interest of telling a well-crafted story. A fine example of the former is Isaac Asimov; of the latter, Ray Bradbury.
• Among writers in general "plotters" and "pantsers" could be considered technicians and performers, respectively. "Plotters" prefer to write out an outline and compose character profiles before starting on the story, while those who write "by the seat of their pants" tend to just sit down and make it up as they go. Pantsers might be prone to wandering off on tangents or developing Plot Tumors as they work, necessitating a good editor or a rudimentary outline to keep things on track, whereas planner stories bear the risk of dying even before any drafts are begun because the writer doesn't know how to get the plot from Point A to Point B and refuses to wing a solution.

Music

• The central ethos of punk rock is that of the performer, bringing it to swift popularity in a musical landscape dominated by the prog rock technicians who dominated contemporary rock music.
• Karaoke singers tend to fall into one of these two extremes, and audiences tend to respond equally well to both the guy singing off-key and flubbing the lines while jumping wildly around the stage and the guy nailing the song flawlessly.
• Many people who audition for X Factor or Idol are either overconfident people with no singing ability, or people with good singing ability who are too nervous to sing well in front of people. People who pass their auditions are usually humble people with good singing ability who can take criticism. They are usually attractive as well, but this isn't always the case.
• Many technicians work hard to get a performalist appearance. Dancers are a good example, but holds for musicians as well.
• Career soloist musicians tend to fall into one of these two camps, although there are notable exceptions. In the mid 20th century, the rivalry between Fritz Kreisler (known for his nearly impossible to replicate cadenzas) and Jascha Heifetz (known for inventive performances) was this. They were both eccentric individuals (to put it politely) with titanic egos, and legions of perhaps overly loyal fans. This was also a time when young academics were being encouraged to question the standards and assumptions of older academics. This ended up with someone accusing Kreisler's fans of anti-semitism, in a rather baffling article. As this was the 1960s, the argument was taken more seriously than it probably should have been. Both musicians pushed modern composers in directions they might not otherwise have taken: and reached people well outside the normally insular world of Classical music. What this ultimately led to was more entertaining concerts, regardless of who was performing.

Performing Arts

• Director-writer Franco Dragone, who handled most of Cirque du Soleil's shows through 1998, arranged for extensive creative workshops with the gymnasts, acrobats, dancers, etc. hired for each show from Nouvelle Experience onward. He was confident in their technical skills, so in the workshops he focused on getting them in touch with their creative sides. From these, the quirky characters of the shows emerged — performers who were nonetheless highly skilled. The first post-Dragone show, Dralion, would have used similar methods but they ran up against Values Dissonance due to a predominantly Chinese cast that was not comfortable with Dragone's style; the creative team instead focused on getting the best work possible out of these technicians, which is why the show isn't as character/theme-focused.
• Chris Bliss tends to be belittled in the juggling world for only ever using three balls instead of a more technically demanding higher amount. As a result, the same people find his immense popularity puzzling. However, Bliss' performances are flexible and lively with how he keeps shifting his juggling patterns, while people juggling with more objects tend to repeat the same precise mechanical pattern.
• Puppeteers of The Muppets have to have elements of both styles strictly by necessity, as in most cases the same person is providing the voice, delivering the dialogue, and manipulating the puppet all at once. As the Muppet Performers come from a diverse series of backgrounds, some lean more in one direction than another.
  • Jerry Nelson, for example, had a rather stiff, unexpressive style of puppetry, and even his lip-sync wasn't as precise as most of the others. On the other hand, he was The Cast Show Off for his singing, his ability to deliver both hilarious and heart-wrenching performances, and he was the group's resident Man of a Thousand Voices.
  • Dave Goelz, by contrast, did not come from a creative or performing background (he was an engineer), and got his start designing and building puppets. As a result, when he became a puppeteer himself he knew all the technical skills to operating the puppets, but it took a few years before he was confident enough in himself as a performer to realize the emotional, loveable characters he is now known for.
  • This is why Frank Oz was universally considered The Ace during his tenure with the Muppets - he could steal the show with a spectacular performance, or contribute to a scene almost invisibly with masterful, silent subtlety.

Politics

• In political campaigns, it often comes down to a charismatic candidate with a voice and a vision, against a more reserved individual who focuses on in the nitty-gritty of policies. Often as not, the candidate who cultivates a stronger gut reaction from voters will win the election.
  • John F. Kennedy vs Richard Nixon is a fairly famous example, especially regarding their televised presidential debate (the first of its kind in U.S. history). Kennedy wore a dark suit (to better contrast the set) and took extra time to rest before the debate, while Nixon wore a more neutral gray that blended into the background and pushed through despite being sick and overworked due to his attempt to visit every state before voting day. As such, everyone watching was impressed by the comfortable Kennedy (Performer) and underwhelmed by the flustered Nixon (Technician). Interestingly, people who listened to the debate on the radio invariably ranked Nixon as the winner, because he gave much better answers to the questions asked; Kennedy's appeal to the visual medium and subsequent performance won him the day.
  • The 2016 elections took this to its extreme with Hillary Clinton (Technician) and Donald Trump (Performer).
  • The 2020 elections would repeat this dynamic with Joe Biden playing as the Technician. Whereas previous elections favored the Performer, Biden the Technician won partly because he offered plans to persuade voters who were concerned about the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic.
  • While both are Technicians compared to Trump, Biden is more of a Performer compared to Clinton. Clinton had a more detail-oriented policy but was seen as detached and unlikable in several circles. In contrast, Biden touted his image as a Reasonable Authority Figure and was seen as rather outgoing compared to Clinton.

Sports

• Columnist John Derbyshire once said that the Deep Blue vs Kasparov match was really between a "toolmaker" (technician) represented by the program, and a "virtuoso" (performer) represented by Gary Kasparov.
• Also on the subject of Chess, two World Champions: Mikhail Tal (performer) and Tigran Petrosian (technician). Tal was known for wildly speculative sacrifices leading to incredibly active and complex positions; even if later analysis showed the sacrifices to be flawed, it was difficult for even the best opponents to refute them over the board. "Chess, first of all, is art," said Tal. Meanwhile Petrosian was known for setting up rock-solid defenses and waiting for the opponent to make the slightest of mistakes, and then systematically demolishing them. Responding to criticism of his style, Petrosian said "They say my games should be more 'interesting'. I could be more 'interesting'—and also lose." (In case you were wondering, Petrosian has the slight edge in his lifetime record against Tal, 22½—19½.)
• Garry Kasparov's dynamic, active playing style and Anatoly Karpov's positional "Boa Constrictor" squared off in 1984 FIDE world championship. It had to be terminated after 48 games unresolved because the players' health was in risk due to strain.
• The 2022 controversy over grandmaster Hans Niemann's beating world champion Magnus Carlsen has often been framed by the media as a Technician vs. Performer dynamic. While Carlsen's playing style — aggressive, flexible, and often employing unusual openings that throw people off guard — may resemble that of a Performer, he is primarily renowned for playing "calmly, methodically and, perhaps most importantly of all, without fear," for keeping up a physical fitness regimen rivaling those of professional athletes, and for his untouchable reputation. Meanwhile, Niemann's flamboyant, loud persona on Twitch, attention-grabbing antics, complete lack of a filter in interviews, and history of online cheating led The New York Times to call him "the bad boy of chess."
• The rivalry between figure skaters Robin Cousins and Jan Hoffman boiled down to could Hoffman win by more on the technical figure tracing than Cousins could on the free program.
• In the Asian competitive yo-yoing circuit, the team from Thailand is consistently the technicians while the team from Japan is most often the performers. The prevailing Thai strategy is to incorporate and mimic as flawlessly as possible past winning performances, whereas Japanese yo-yoers, inspired by the improvisational performers that made them an international force, are more inclined to make routines on the fly and create new tricks. The Thai usually get near perfect marks in technical skill whereas the Japanese usually do the same in creativity. (That being said, creativity is given more weight than technical skill, so between the two countries, only Japan has ever represented in world tournaments.)
• More downplayed than the other examples, but Western martial arts (boxing, German fencing, wrestling) leans towards Technician, while Eastern martial arts (karate, kung-fu, taekwondo), leans towards to Performer.
  • When put together in a ruleset that allows for both such as Mixed Martial Arts a Technician with a strong grasp of the basic skills of fighting (Boxing, wrestling and submission grappling) tend to dominate a more flashy Performer.
• When it comes to the muscle sport world, there are two types of professionals: the bodybuilder and the strongman. Bodybuilders (technician) focus on mirror-like symmetry and go for the perfect sculptured look with science-based techniques, but their muscles are used for show. When they are in the middle of a competition, they are actually physically at their weakest due to starving and dehydrating themselves to reduce body fat. Strongmen (performer), on the other hand maintain a focus based on the need to be able to do many different tasks and be strong everywhere. While bodybuilders are cut and trim, strongmen are always huge around the middle. This is because the massive weights being lifted and the strange ways they are lifted put immense pressure on the spine and internal organs and a very strong core (with padding from fat deposits) is needed to protect them.
• In motorsport, while both Technicians and Performers are everywhere, the general rule is that drifting is for Performers wanting to put on a smoky, high-octane show of car control, while grip driving is the realm of Technicians seeking the fastest, most efficient way around the track. That said, there are Technician drifters out to demonstrate superlative mastery of their vehicle, and Performer circuit drivers that engage in stunning battles for position.
  I drift not because it is a quicker way around a corner, but it is the most exciting way - Keiichi Tsuchiya
• Elsewhere in the car enthusiast community, there is the distinction between the Technicians, people who love to tune their cars with performance modifications to extract the maximum power of it; and the Performers, who often just prefer racing and driving pleasure.
• Two of the great all-round card players (and close friends — they were also skilled at Backgammon and wrote a book about it together), Oswald Jacoby (technician) and John R. Crawford (performer).
• Parkour (which emphasizes efficiency) versus freerunning (which emphasizes aesthetics).
• In 2000, while observing Brian Orser's performance at the Hershey Figure Skating Challenge, a color commentator recalled the outcome of the "Battle of the Brians" back in 1988, saying that tiebreakers were decided based on the skaters' technical scores, and that if it had been decided based on artistic scores instead, Orser would have won instead of Brian Boitano.
• This video of artistic gymnasts trying parkour shows the perspective of similar movements and skills, but used in very different manners: gymnastics has a focus on technical perfection and very standardized ways to do things, while parkour is much more free and focused on efficient movement. The gymnasts have no problem mastering the movements, but they admit that it's an interesting experience to step out the rigid standards of gymnastics, while the parkour instructors admit that they were impressed by how cleanly the gymnast did things. In a positive spin of this trope, both sides end up learning from the others and gaining mutual respect.

Technology

• The traditional Mac/PC rivalry revolved around this, with Microsoft as the technician and Apple as the performer. In the last decade or so, however, the rivalry has cooled, and both now straddle the technician/performer divide. Somewhat ironic, since in internal design, they are arguably the opposite: Apple OS is the tightly-defined technician, with one tried and tested app for each function, whereas Windows is the more adaptable but sloppier performer.
• Browsers tend to emphasise either customizability and power or a streamlined user interface. The release of Google Chrome in 2008 set off a trend of smooth, lightweight browsers: compare, for example, Opera Presto and its vast array of built-in features (technician) with the newer Opera Chromium, which is much faster but has abandoned all but the most basic options (performer).
• You might think that software developers would be all technicians, but the Playful Hackers lean toward the "performer" end of the spectrum. One of the tenets of the "hacker ethic" is that code can be beautiful. These people tend to gravitate toward Linux and open source software. While they can create some amazing programs, they unfortunately tend to avoid things like documentation or "proper" coding style, which makes life difficult for the programmers who have to maintain their code after them.

Video Games

• With Video Games this is often the difference between Let's Play or Streaming (performers) and Professional Gaming and Speedrunning (technicians). While there are plenty of people who can do both, personality is much more important for Let's Players/Streamers as the basis of their brand, whereas for pro gamers and speedrunners, skill is paramount.
  • Hardcore gamers who play to win (technicians) versus softcore and casual gamers who play just to have fun (performers). An age-old rivalry.
  • Within the Damager, Healer, Tank triangle, Damager and Tank are the performers, who are up front with the relatively simple tasks of doing damage and soaking it up, respectively, while the Healer/Support is the technician, micromanaging the team's health and buffs. Heck, think of it as like a theater performance: Damager and Tank are the actors on stage, while the Healer/Support hangs in the back and manages things that actors don't need to care (as much) about. At a higher level though, the paradigm shifts; Damagers become Technicians optimizing their output, while Tanks and Healers become Performers reacting to the ever-changing (and potentially random) conditions of a given encounter.
  • On the production side, large studios and AAA games (technicians) vs small studios and Indie games (performers). Being on the wrong side (so to speak) may have contributed to Hideo Kojima leaving Konami.
  • More granular are Programmers and Designers: Both as essential as each-other, where the Designers (Performers) create the player's experience as they play through the game, while the Programmers (Technicians) polish the game to let the design really shine. Heck, the parts of a game are literally named after engineering and performance terms: the Engine and Mechanics are built by the Programmer, while Scenes and Experience are created by the Designer.
• The two most important creators of Doom were John Romero (performer) and John Carmack (technician): Carmack was the background genius programmer responsible for all the technical achievements Doom pulled off, while Romero was the one who came up with the Rated M for Manly-cum-Death Metal-cum-Gorn aesthetic the series is (in)famous for and became the face of id Software; eventually the two split over creative differences of how they wanted to design games, as Romero wanted bigger and flashier games while Carmack firmly believed in the Excuse Plot. This backfired on Romero overtime, as even if he is the more famous of the two, nowadays he is well known for the disaster that was his pet project Daikatana (although he recovered some reputation with Sigil), while Carmack's career has quietly continued to blossom in the tech field at id until 2013 and as the CEO of Oculus VR between 2013 and 2022.
• When it comes to hardware, the PC vs. Console debate reflects this dichotomy. Gamer PC users are the technicians, as the keyboard-mouse combo is harder to understand than the controller but allows many possibilities, they can customize their games the way they want, and their lowest configuration makes games look better than the most powerful console, but it's also more expensive, and if they can optimize their hardware, they still have to change the whole machine over time, notably because the non-video game software still requires newer machines to work. On the other hand, console users don't have this freedom nor power, but their games are automatically optimized, their controllers are easier to understand than the keyboard-mouse combo, the most powerful console is still cheaper than the lowest gamer PC, and even ten, twenty or more years later, their machine is still playable either because it doesn't have hardware, because it's limited and non-intrusive, or because the last update is well-crafted for remaining users.
  • On consoles themselves, Nintendo has a reputation as a performer competing against technicians, especially since The Seventh Generation of Console Video Games: while Sony and Microsoft focus on powerful hardware competing with PC standards, but also narrative games and new technologies for the former (the PlayStation VR and the Dual Sense controller are good examples of this), and multimedia support and crossplay for the latter (the Game Pass almost makes Microsoft straddle the divide), Nintendo instead makes consoles which use the full potential of "outdated" hardware, games which either have an Excuse Plot or integrate it well to the gameplay, and on easily noticeable innovations (dual screen and touch-screen, motion controls, asymetric gameplay and the former two on a hybrid handheld-console system) to renew this same gameplay.

War

• The Italian Wars pitted the French (Performers) against the Spaniards (Technician). The French had a very traditional, almost ritualistic medieval style of warfare which emphasized heavy cavalry and direct charges, a style in which they were admittedly good, but which had never really been challenged by a distinctly different approach. Meanwhile, the Spaniards had just won a long series of low-resource wars against the Moors and themselves in the Iberian Peninsula, and therefore had emerged with an excellence in trickery, ambushes, and maximizing efficiency over tradition. The best clash of styles was Cerignola, where Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba lured the proud Louis d'Armagnac into leading a cavalry charge against an entrenched position full of arquebusiers, which ended about as well for the French as you can imagine.
• The Battle of Waterloo pitted Napoléon Bonaparte, the intuitive and brilliant genius of his age who grasped tactics like breathing (the Performer) vs. The Duke of Wellington, the rigorous and methodical professional soldier (the Technician). Napoleon met his match.
• US Navy (Technician) vs Imperial Japanese Navy (Performer) in World War II. The technicians won this one, largely because of better strategic intelligence and battle-action, even during the early years of the war when they were often outnumbered, as well as paying attention to little details such as damage control and training regimen. Meanwhile, the Japanese paid little attention to anything that wasn't necessary in maintaining combat performance, as well as relying on Refuge in Audacity for many of its combat actions; this resulted in blunders like Pearl Harbor (which did very little harm but angered the US enough for it to respond) and the sinking of Taiho (which was because of poor damage control).
• The El Alamein campaigns stands out: Rommel (performer) versus Montgomery (technician). Rommel was a tactical genius with a penchant for risky but brilliant maneuver warfare, conducted on a shoestring logistical line; Montgomery was excellent at organization and attention to detail, arranging for every shell to reach its destination. In a inversion, Montgomery won. Second El Alamein was not known for British maneuver genius but for meticulously-planned attacks that smashed through Rommel's depleted lines; Rommel had no fuel to maneuver with thanks to British air attacks, while Montgomery's staff had even forecast the length of the battle successfully. Basically, Rommel was at his best when other people were handling the operational level of war (confining him to tactics, something he was actually good at) and Montgomery was best at the operational level (having prevented his subordinates from exercising too much imagination in their tactics).
• The entire chain of political events which ended in World War II could be understood as the battle between the logic of a Technician and that of a Performer, while the former was the Soviet Union and the latter the community of Fascist states. If anything, the Communists were absolute maniacs of discipline and gain by struggle: they won the Russian Civil War by the skin of their teeth, developed the heavy industry and military forces of the USSR by iron hand, oppression, death and poverty, won World War II by the force of numbers, imitated to the point that Soviet cars, trucks, buildings or fridges were carbon copies of American designs, only because they were so determined to gain visible results that took the easier way by copying what worked, regardless of having understood the culture behind it or not. On the other side, the entire Fascist culture, from Benito Mussolini in the 1920s to the end, revolved around coolness, elaborate design, color, music, innovation, staging, up to the point of being a gigantic theatrical performance instead of true Machiavellian politics. They played straight the trope, as modern people are far more impressed by cool tanks, uniforms and heroic deeds of the losers instead of the anonymous labor and toil of the winners. It says something that what many people instinctively think of when they think of the Nazis is state-sponsored propaganda produced by the Nazis (e.g. Triumph of the Will).
  From first to last, the Third Reich was spectacular, gripping theater. That is what it was intended to be — Modris Eksteins
  It's been argued that this is an ideological difference between communism and fascism more generally: Such is the aestheticizing of politics, as practiced by fascism. Communism replies by politicising art. — Walter Bejamin
• The trope Soldier vs. Warrior incorporates the basic elements behind this trope. A soldier (Technician) trains to fight as part of a team, drilling and practicing to become part of an organised unit. A warrior (Performer), on the other hand, is a much better fighter individually, but is undisciplined and fights alone. The Roman Empire vs The Celts during the conquest of Britain is a good example of this; in open fields with plenty of space, the Romans fought as one and overwhelmed the Celts with superior equipment, training and discipline, but when they were forced to fight in the forests that covered Britain at the time, they were split up from each other and the Celts massacred them in one-on-one fights.
• Historian William Terdoslavich essentially argues this as the primary reason the successors of Alexander the Great weren't able to duplicate his achievements. In his essay "Glory or Bust", printed in the Bill Fawcett anthology How to Lose a War, he notes that Alexander had a preternatural ability to read a battlefield and find an opening to launch a Decapitation Strike against the enemy commander, usually leading the attack himself with his noble cavalry guard, the Hetairoi ('companions'). His successors such as Pyrrhus of Epirus used the same doctrines but lacked Alexander's ability to spot the opportune moment for a Death or Glory Attack, and lost to the Romans, who had a more flexible doctrine that didn't rely on the personal badassery of their generals (as well as greater ability to replace their losses).

Other/General

• Automated Production (Technician) vs. Hand Craft (Performer). A robotic production line can make incredibly precise items rapidly and generally wins, however hand crafting has a "personal" and "unique" feel about it that lets someone think less about paying higher amounts for a (generally) lower quality item if it's man made. Even then, certain products benefit better from one method more than the other.
• At some culinary schools, this is described as Baker Versus Cook — the former are generally considered to be much more precise in their directions and timing, while the latter improvise a considerable amount more. Bakers have to be precise, as the ratios of the ingredients to one another is absolutely critical to baking. Cooks do not need to be precise and have more freedom to improvise. The differing skillsets are why many larger upscale kitchens will have a dessert chef completely distinct from the executive chef handling appetizers and entrees.
• Beauty: Technician Dayanara Torres (may have won the beauty pageant) vs. Performer Jennifer Lopez (actually hailed as the world's most beautiful woman over and over again).
• Modeling: Technician Gisele Bundchen vs. Performer Heidi Klum.
• Education. Ignoring the obvious of Mathematics and Physics versus Art and Music (and possibly English and History too), there's also the more general Everyone Gets A Trophy phenomenon and the promotion of vocational qualifications alongside more academic ones; the public backlash comes from the perception that schools should be about technical (academic) achievement, but they're increasingly seen as pandering to performalists.
  • By contrast, with career choice after getting an education, this is nearly inverted. Those who pursue more practical jobs tend to be closer to technicians are they tend to find jobs that are in high demand and thus find job stability and a much higher salary. Academia, on the other hand, is less stable and generally only pursued out of passion and curiosity.
• Robert Falcon Scott (performer) and Roald Amundsen (technician) in the race for South Pole. Scott was very much a Gentleman Adventurer, hoping to conduct a scientific expedition alongside the Pole march and willing to experiment with motor sledges and making unplanned changes to his crew. Amundsen was a Crazy-Prepared utilitarian who focused solely on reaching the Pole using proven methods (sledge dogs and skiing). Ultimately, Amundsen won, but for a long time Scott and his tragic death on a return march were more remembered.
• Keep this in mind next time you read or write a Top Ten List: is it the Top 10 Best ____, or is it your Top 10 Favorite ____?
• The Fixed mindset vs. the Growth mindset: People with the Fixed mindset define themselves by their abilities, tend to put more effort in perfecting a single project, but are brought down more by failure. By contrast, those with the Growth mindset define themselves by effort, like to get experience in several subjects under their belts, and are more willing to break a few eggs to make their own omlette.
• The long-awaited cooking showdown between Gordon Ramsay and Bobby Flay, if and when it happens, will be this, with Ramsay as the culinary expert and Flay as the competition expert.
• Among two major roller coaster manufacturers, Bolliger & Mabillard and Intamin. B&M are the technicians - they tend to create more predictable and standard rides from their design portfolio, but their roller coasters tend to be more robust, reliable and with great throughput whilst creating great ride experiences. Intamin are the performers - they tend to push more boundaries with their models (all but one roller coaster that goes over 100mph were manufactured by Intamin) also creating great ride experiences but they have become infamous for reliability issues, with their coasters often facing significant amounts of downtime. Roller coaster enthusiasts tend to love both manufacturers for their work and how they succeed in their own different ways.