AMP41418 Performativity 2: Audience (Spring 2023)

The course is connected to the following study programs

Mandatory course in Master in Performance (120 ECTS)

Absolute requirements

Passed all exams in 1st semester.

Lecture Semester

2nd semester (spring)

The student's learning outcomes after completing the course

The student:

• will gain expanded critical and theoretical awareness of known perception modes and conventions of performative spaces such as proscenium stage, black box, white cube, museum, lecture space etc., including the role of public space in art processes.

• will gain expanded critical and theoretical awareness of how terms like audience, public, and perception are defined in different discourses and can apply that awareness to their own artistic process.

• will have competence in analyzing and engaging with discourses on how performative practices create, intervene in and rely on their audiences and contexts.

• will have knowledge in critically reflecting and evaluating their own artistic work within different contexts, set their own methods for projects in relation to concepts of space and audience.

Content

Performativity 2: Audience includes 1) A course with lectures, reading and critical group discussions on theory and history. 2) collective work with internal seminar on topic of Audiences.

In Performativity 2: Audience students will be confronted with a range of critiques and practices from the contemporary arts field, which define audience, perception, public and private space from various perspectives. These topics will be processed by the students both in lecture-based discussions as well as independent research. They will have lectures by visiting scholars and artists introducing theory that questions the relationship between art and the quotidian such as traditions of socially engaged art, participatory art, site specific and public art, street art, and festival traditions. The group collaborates in this semester on an independently organized internal seminar on Audience that they curate and host under the advice of a tutor. The aim of the seminar is to practice connecting the topic to their own research through different literary and artistic perspectives from the field.

Forms of teaching and learning

Independent work, tutor lead teaching, together with lecture / discussion. This course will also include viewing and discussion of live performances, theater works, installations and other relevant events. There is an emphasis on giving time to processing and reflecting deeper on the given syllabus, in an attempt to bridge theory and practice.

Workload

Approx. 300 hours

Coursework requirements - conditions for taking the exam

Delivery of a lecture during the internal seminar outlining their Master project where they reformulate their research questions, proposed working methods, reflections on dramaturgical, territorial, and audience related questions connected to their practice. The lecture should reflect research conducted in the course: i.e. archival materials including written texts, images, bibliographic references, and other reflections of the students' study both practically and theoretically. Students should decide on the space/ venue for the first phase of their Master Project and start the according planning.

An attendance of minimum 80 % is required.

Examination

Verbal examination
Duration: 20-30 minutes individual examination plus plenum discussion.

Assessment of student achievement of course's learning outcomes is accomplished by conclusion of the semester by structured discussion between the student, the student's advisor and one employee lecturer, based on the lecture during the internal seminar.

Uses verbal feedback. Uses the grade pass / fail.

Examiners

Student's supervisor and one lecturer who is a member of staff.

Conditions for resit/rescheduled exams

Failure to pass the exam in one or more courses will only be given one new exam attempt. New examination paper is formulated by programme coordinator in collaboration with the student's supervisor during the course of the semester's 3rd last week.

In continuation assessment, the programme coordinator must in addition to supervisor and staff teacher, who normally assess the student, appoint one additional employee teacher to this sensor array.

The programme coordinator, head of study and student must sign that new exam paper is announced and received.

A new course evaluation (continuation assessment) takes place during the last week of the semester.

Course evaluation

See the programme description.

Literature

The reading list is last updated May 27th, 2021.

References to current literature, video material, websites , staged productions and exhibitions, art catalogues, film, music, art, dance and theater criticism in the media and other relevant references are supplied in part by the Programme Coordinator and are partly the responsibility of the student to research independently under tutoring. During the 2nd semester the individual bibliography is further developed towards submission of the Scrapbook archive draft and MA project description at the end of this semester.

Recommended literature:

Arendt, H. (1996) Vita Activa, Det virksomme liv. Oslo: Pax Forlag.

Bishop, C. (2012) Artificial Hells, Participatory Art and The Politics of Spectatorship. London and New York: Verso.

Butler, J. (2015) Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, Harvard University Press.

Geheimagentur, (2011) The Art of being Many. Performance Research: A journal of the Performing Arts.16: 3, pp. 36-42

Lingis, A. (1994) The Community of Those Who Have Nothing In Common. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Nancy, J-L. (2000) Being Singular Plural. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Ranciére, J. (2009) The Emancipated Spectator. London and New York: Verso.

Van Eikels, K. (2011) What Parts of Us Can do With Parts of Each Other (and When), Some Parts of This Text. Performance Research, Issue 3.