Abstract
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.
Highlights
Contemporary artists who are looking for public funding, especially when applying to ArtsCouncil England (ACE), need to ensure that their projects engage the audience in aesthetic and, and perhaps even more importantly, social terms
In 2016, a series of dance workshops by Instant Dissidence in a migrant camp near Calais led to the creation of Dancing with Strangers: From Calais to England, a performance based on four duets created in collaboration four migrantswith from
Calais to England, it is the presence of an embracing stranger by proxy that confronts a non-attending counterpublic and comes into the light; the stage is replaced by the body of the dancer, which provides the fragile space “in which our flight through life may be likewise sheltered”, perhaps a public sphere where fear is momentarily suspended
Summary
Contemporary artists who are looking for public funding, especially when applying to Arts. I propose exploring the often normative and idealist notions of the public sphere and counterpublic at their possible breaking point To this end, I examine online comments following newspaper articles on a 2016 performance of Dancing with Strangers: From Calais to England by Instant Dissidence. I look at how newspapers’ comment platforms enabling some degree of engagement with the arts could be considered to be serving as a subaltern public sphere and, in the present case, as a potential substitute for a live audience This approach enables me to reconsider the notion of the counterpublic and to reflect upon the dialectical tension between politics and aesthetics within a subaltern online public sphere not immune to all kinds of extremism. Mondzain defines as phobocracy and propose syncopolitics as a way out of both online polarisation echo chambers and normative approaches to performing artists’ engagement with society
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