Public Spheres, Counterpublics’ Fears and Syncopolitics

Humanities

卷:9

Fred Dalmasso¹ 

[1] School of Design and Creative Arts, Loughborough University, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, UK;

关键词: public sphere;    civil society;    audience;    spectator;    counterpublic;    dance;   

DOI  :  10.3390/h9020031

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

This article explores the often normative and idealist notion of the public sphere at its possible breaking point by analysing the online reactions to two tabloid articles about a 2016 performance of Dancing with Strangers: From Calais to England by Instant Dissidence. It first looks at how a comment platform could be perceived as a subaltern public sphere and as a substitute for a live audience in order to reconsider the notion of the counterpublic. For this, it examines the dialectical tension between politics and aesthetics within a subaltern online public sphere not immune to all kinds of extremism. This leads to an attempt to consider online hostile lay critics as a potentially legitimate public to address the dilemma faced by contemporary artists when engaging with society in an all-inclusive manner. Finally, this article offers a different reading of Instant Dissidence’s performance and of the possible reasons for the commentators’ rage and alienation and proposes syncopolitics as a way out of both online polarisation echo chambers and the public engagement conundrum.

【 授权许可】

Unknown