In the original iteration of my work Staged in 2011 (and the subsequent version created for Verge Gallery in 2012) a ‘stage’ was set up with the aim of allowing the audience to become conscious of their own presence, rather than be confronted with a fixed object or scripted production. The rectangular raised black platform, surrounded by a black velvet skirt, had a minimal simplicity but an intrinsic stage-like quality. In version one of the work, sited outside on the expansive grass area at Sydney College of the Arts, a large ‘daylight maker’ light was installed for the evening performance.

At 6pm the light was turned on to signal the beginning of the show. The audience gathered and spread picnic rugs around the stage in anticipation of the coming event. One man even set up a camera to photograph the proceedings. After waiting, and having their expectations thwarted, the audience gradually began to take to the stage themselves. In an act of knowing creation, multiple small impromptu performances sprang up: several young girls danced; an old couple set up a picnic and shared a bottle of champagne on the stage edge; two young men talked in deep conversation, one becoming tearful. On the grass, other moments of presence emerged. A man became distressed, feeling his job was to defend the stage: he had watched it being set up and wanted to protect it from unauthorised actions.

Here was an active, engaged audience. This brings to mind artist Tania Bruguera’s thoughts:

What interests me as art is the process, but not the process in the sense of ‘showing’ something that is taking place in time and space, but the thinking process activated in the spectator.[1]

The audience to Staged not only became aware of their physical presence on the stage but also gained an awareness of their thinking processes. This included having to wrestle with their expectations, their social relations, and ultimately their role as an audience integral to the creation of the work.

It is we the socially engaged—who create communal spaces for others and ourselves by performing as instigators of social exchange.[2]

The term ‘socially-engaged’ is much used of late in contemporary art. I would like to look at my own definition of the term as it relates to the evolution of my work and the way I go about creating art.

Socially-engaged art has many synonyms. As noted in Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991-2011,[3] it can be called ‘relational aesthetics’, ‘social justice’, ‘social practice’ or ‘community art’. Each of these terms brings to mind very distinctive forms of art practice. For instance, the term ‘community art’ denotes an art that is inclusive and stems from a specific homogenous group working towards a similar aim. In contrast, ‘social justice’ implies a political imperative to fight for a particular cause that in some way champions justice. In relation to my own practice, these alternative terms are too narrow and do not allow for forms that are able to adapt to the many and varied situations, audiences and sites I encounter. I use the term ‘socially-engaged’ as its range is broader and allows for artistic work outside as well as inside the gallery and institutional systems.

My work is always based in the ‘social’, and by this I mean all forms of relationships and connections, both positive and negative, between people. ‘Engaged’ I see as signifying a form of connection that is active.

This social exchange and the power dynamics that exist within it must be fully comprehended if artists are to create work in this area. In his book The Nightmare of Participation,[4] Marcus Miessen raises several issues about social exchange that have become pivotal to my practice. Like Miessen, I see that participatory artwork is at a turning point and a transition is taking place.

The romantic notions of collaboration and inclusion now operate in opposition to their original aims. In popular ‘inclusive’ artworks that invite the audience to participate in a manner that is preordained by the artist, we may witness a deactivation of the audience and a loss of any possibility of a true activity. In these pseudo-participatory works audience members can become merely pawns in a game, where they are deluded and duped, given a false sense that they are creating and connecting when the reality is that they are only playing a prescribed part in a neo-liberal system. The perpetuation of this mirage of activity only acts to reinforce and reproduce the system in its own likeness again and again. The audience, believing themselves to be active, cannot break free, and paradoxically they remain in a state of disempowered inactivity.

 

[1] Tania Bruguera in Roberta Tenconi, “Interview”, Ed. Jota Castro, Phobia Paper, A Publication for The Fear Society, Pabellón de la Urgencia. (53rd. Venice Bienale, 2009), iv-v.

[2]Jan Verwoert, “Exhaustion and Exuberance: Ways to Defy the Pressure to Perform.” Dot Dot Dot, No.15, (Winter 2007), 106.

[3] Nato Thompson, Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991-2011. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012)

[4] Markus Miessen, The Nightmare of Participation: Crossbench Praxis as a Mode of Criticality. (New York: Sternberg Press, 2010)