I am looking forward to this event on Saturday at the Tate Modern ‘ Spatial Confessions: On the Question of Instituting the Public’

It is biased towards performance art, but I think still has relevance to my practice in the way that I think of the audience/viewer. I am thinking that the relationship between artist – artwork – audience is different to that of artist – artwork – viewer. An audience expects to behave in a particular way (a group way, a performance in itself) Am i right in thinking that a viewer is autonomous? Maybe this is why I expect people to do things to the interactive work I have shown. I expect them to act with autonomy, whereas they are actually an part of an audience that knows (has learnt) how to perform in a gallery space.

A quote from the webpage for the event.

Ever since it was established in nineteenth century Europe, the bourgeois public sphere fosters the capacity of individuals to exercise and monitor the performative aspects of their own conduct in public. Museums have been the spaces in which actions, words, deeds, gestures, and bodily movements of citizens are the aesthetic expressions that constitute the public sphere.

The speakers are: Claire Bishop, Nina Power, Ana Vujanović, Marta Popivoda and Goran Sergej Pristaš.