In this essay I will discuss the specific nature of art practices in which the artist and his audience are moving away from the more traditional relationship in which the artist merely displays his art in museums or public spaces. They consist of intimate and personal processes made possible by the grace of the artistic space that is separating itself from the coded space around it. In these practices the public takes on a different role than that of the passive spectator. The involvement of the public in what art is and can be becomes part of the experience. This turns art into something to be a part of rather than something that is simply handed over to you. More specifically, these art practices allow for a time and site-specific situated form of co-ownership, through which the artistic environment created by the artist becomes the condition for experiencing new ideas and insights. In relation to theatre, the French philosopher Jacques Rancière (1940-) writes in The Emancipated Spectator (2015) about “a theater without an audience” that “no longer tempts with its images but teaches the audience something that turns them into active participants rather than passive voyeurs”. (Rancière 2015: 9-10) These practices are not new. New is perhaps the shift of focus from public participation in processes of interaction towards developing a theatrical space that not only makes other types of expression possible, but also taking on other roles and with that, other perspectives. This notion will therefore be the main focus of this text.
The Artist Organisations International conference, organised by Florian Malzacher, Jonas Staal and Joanna Warsza, took place in Berlin’s HAU theatre from 9 to 11 January 2015. The organisers emphasised how it seems that more and more activist artists are creating organisational structures that increase the effectiveness of their artistic actions and productions, which also makes it possible for them to exert an influence on the ethical standards of the contexts in which they work. In this review we (dr. B. Straatman, dr. A. Coumans) present five important issues rising up out of this conference
LINK
Created for the 2019 Prague Quadrennial’s 36Q°, Blue Hour VR was a site-responsive mixed reality performative installation that placed the spectator, as experiencer, within a hybrid landscape of real- time three-dimensional computer graphics and 360-degree video. This article describes the design process, staging and experience of Blue Hour VR from the vantage point of its creators. Using a phenomenological perspective, the article discusses how Blue Hour VR staged presence and embodiment within an intermedial haptic experience. Blue Hour VR demonstrates how virtual reality technology can be harnessed by a mixed reality performance design, which includes both the material and virtual environment, creating a complex stratigraphy of intermedial textures and visual dramaturgies that co-exist inside, outside and in between perceptual realities. In doing so, the article aims to contribute to the limited body of work on mixed and virtual reality in the context of theatre and performance design.