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This book presents a study that undertakes an examination of participatory practices in contemporary theatre, performance and the visual arts, setting these against the broader social and political horizons of civic participation. It reconsiders the status of participation, with particular emphasis on participatory art both beyond a judgement of its social qualities as well as the confines of format and devising. The book attempts a cross-disciplinary discussion of participation, bringing together examples from the field of applied and community theatre, performance art and participatory visual arts. Gestures of participation in performance indicate possibilities for reconfiguring civic participation in public spaces in unexpected ways. Thus, less emphasis is laid on direct opposition and instead seeking a variety of modes of resisting co-optation, through unsolicited, vicarious or delicate gestures of participation. The book examines the question of institutional critique in relation to participatory art. It moves on to address the relationship between participatory art and the concept of 'impact'. A close examination of one workshop setting using the methodological framework of the 'theatre of the oppressed' in the context of a political party-led initiative follows. The book follows two conceptually inspired performance projects Where We Are Not? and If I Could Take Your Place? Finally, it emphasizes on how common-sense assumptions around audience participation in theatre and performance theory are called into question by the artwork's foregrounding of sleep as a mode of participation.
’, ‘un monde inventé’ and ‘l’imaginaire’ 3 (Leconte 2000 : 48). It is a tempting ‘common sense’ assumption to propose that a body of films that takes its bearings in the realms of fantasy or the banal everyday must be a less ethically valid project than one which treats the great social and political questions of an age. However, as I argued in chapter 5 , postmodern theories of ethics allow for a slightly different
emphasised in the above quote, Lorde speaks of change as ‘a basic and radical alteration in … assumptions’. Part of social research must always be about gathering evidence that helps to demonstrate contradictions in common-sense assumptions, and producing new ways of thinking that help us understand those assumptions and their contradictions – and perhaps thereby change things. The power of anger as a motivating force, as Lorde argues and as our
. Furthermore, with no general protocol or ethical guidelines, the treatment of choice in aversion therapy was often the unilateral decision of the consultant psychiatrist. This highlights the power that the medical profession appeared to hold at the time. These nurses seem to have been swamped by this medical power and the influential culture of the institution, which dictated that nursing was learnt ‘by watching the example of others, based on “common sense” assumptions and concern with neatness rather than on research-based theory’.8 Other subordinate nurses sensed that
extent to which “a substantial myth has grown up, based on a picture of the energetic . . . showbiz visionaries [of ITV] elbowing aside the complacent bureaucrats of the BBC” (Black, 1972: 109). Like all myths, this opposition contains elements of truth, but it is also the product of a number of “common sense” assumptions which require revisitation (Johnson and Turnock, 2005: 4). The discussion so far can be seen as interrogating what Jason Jacobs calls the relationship between the “macro-overview of broadcasting history” and the more local analyses of specific genres
importantly, for the most part, our daily accomplishment of everyday life involves habits and routines of which we may not always be reflectively aware. We employ common-sense assumptions and routines to structure and impose order on our everyday lives. As Felski ( 2000 : 91–2) points out, ‘the contemporary city may constitute a chaotic labyrinth of infinite possibilities, yet in our daily travels we often
reading the talkbacks, I couldn’t help but notice that one of them exclaimed: “Anyone that is single above the age of thirty is damaged goods.” I smiled to myself; how lucky I am to be only thirty-two. My damage is considered to be light; I am safe for the time being. But the thought hasn’t really disappeared. (Resnik 2007c) In fact, the reading of the texts reveals how the struggle against common-sense assumptions concerning thirty-plus single women is often expressed through a complex interplay of power and resistance, compliance, and confrontation. Merav relates to
evildoers known all too well’ remains a subject of hope, retaining the subjunctive potential, within the parameters of Pynchon’s fictional California, to arrive redemptively at ‘some better shore’. Despite its considerably simpler narrative form and less encyclopaedic range of references, then, Inherent Vice maintains the criticalpolitical stance that we have detected in a good deal of Pynchon’s writing: it challenges the reader to question common-sense assumptions about the rational structures of domination prevalent in technological thinking and capitalist economics
casual first-person presentation suggests a repeatable process of observation that can be carried out at home should the necessary prism be ‘procured’ (in fact, this is precisely what Martin’s characters do in their lesson on colour). 13 Despite this suggestion of simplicity, Newton’s ideas about the composite nature of light and the production and perception of colour run counter to traditional common-sense assumptions. 14 The 1672 letter challenges earlier accounts that are based on colour as it is experienced in the
served as the mass media of their day, complete with recurrent characters and memes which both reflected and helped produce ‘common-sense’ assumptions of racial Others. Some, such as Oroonoko: or, The Royal Slave by Aphra Behn , published in 1688, portrayed enslaved Black people as violent, lustful and vengeful, reinforcing the images made familiar in the justification of chattel slavery in the Americas. Later, theatrical productions such as The Padlock , by Charles Dibdin and Isaac Bickerstaffe, first performed in London’s Drury Lane Theatre in 1768, deployed