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Public spheres, counterpublics’ fears and syncopolitics

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 commen...

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Main Author: Fred Dalmasso
Format: Default Article
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/2134/12106818.v1
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author Fred Dalmasso
author_facet Fred Dalmasso
author_sort Fred Dalmasso (1384980)
collection Figshare
description 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.
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spelling rr-article-121068182020-04-09T00:00:00Z Public spheres, counterpublics’ fears and syncopolitics Fred Dalmasso (1384980) public sphere civil society audience counterpublic dance performance syncopolitics phobocracy emancipation spectator 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. 2020-04-09T00:00:00Z Text Journal contribution 2134/12106818.v1 https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Public_spheres_counterpublics_fears_and_syncopolitics/12106818 CC BY 4.0
spellingShingle public sphere
civil society
audience
counterpublic
dance
performance
syncopolitics
phobocracy
emancipation
spectator
Fred Dalmasso
Public spheres, counterpublics’ fears and syncopolitics
title Public spheres, counterpublics’ fears and syncopolitics
title_full Public spheres, counterpublics’ fears and syncopolitics
title_fullStr Public spheres, counterpublics’ fears and syncopolitics
title_full_unstemmed Public spheres, counterpublics’ fears and syncopolitics
title_short Public spheres, counterpublics’ fears and syncopolitics
title_sort public spheres, counterpublics’ fears and syncopolitics
topic public sphere
civil society
audience
counterpublic
dance
performance
syncopolitics
phobocracy
emancipation
spectator
url https://hdl.handle.net/2134/12106818.v1