Getting In On the Act: How Arts Groups are Creating Opportunities for Active Participation

Arts participation is being redefined as people increasingly choose to engage with art in new, more active and expressive ways. This movement carries profound implications, and fresh opportunities, for the nonprofit arts sector.We are in the midst of a seismic shift in cultural production, moving from a "sit-back-and-be-told culture" to a "making-and-doing-culture." Active or participatory arts practices are emerging from the fringes of the Western cultural tradition to capture the collective imagination. Many forces have conspired to lead us to this point. The sustained economic downturn that began in 2008, rising ticket prices, the pervasiveness of social media, the roliferation of digital content and rising expectations for self-guided, on-demand, customized experiences have all contributed to a cultural environment primed for active arts practice. This shift calls for a new equilibrium in the arts ecology and a new generation of arts leaders ready to accept, integrate and celebrate all forms of cultural practice. This is, perhaps, the defining challenge of our time for artists, arts organizations and their supporters -- to embrace a more holistic view of the cultural ecology and identify new possibilities for Americans to engage with the arts.How can arts institutions adapt to this new environment?Is participatory practice contradictory to, or complementary to, a business model that relies on professional production and consumption?How can arts organizations enter this new territory without compromising their values r artistic ideals?This report aims to illuminate a growing body of practice around participatory engagement (with various illustrative case studies profiled at the end) and dispel some of the anxiety surrounding this sphere of activity

Filtering feminisms : Emergent feminist visibilities on Instagram

Based on interviews with feminist Instagram users, this article studies emergent feminist visibilities on Instagram through the concept of filtering. Filtering entails both enhancement and subtraction: some feminist sensibilities align with Instagram?s interaction order, while others become subdued and remain at the margins of visibility. Taken together, users? filtering practices contribute to the confident and happy image, individualistic streak, and accommodationist cast of popular feminism, while also amplifying feminist politics that affirm the pleasures of visibility and desire. Instagram proves a more challenging environment for feminists seeking to criticize competitive individualism and aesthetic norms. The notion of filtering enriches existing research on how online environments reconfigure feminist politics and problematizes the avowal of feminism in media culture.Non peer reviewe

Mediated city: Annual review 2012

The research projects under Mediated City explore questions that traverse through various disciplines to create new knowledge. Here, design catalyses changes in people’s practices to cross boundary domains, such as art, business, geospatial science, interaction design and creative writing. Common themes under Mediated City are:• Activating public engagement in social, environmental and political issues• Creating spaces for dialogue and diversity• Altering our perception and relationship of place• Making histories accessible and meaningful in today’s world.This report documents the 2012 research activities for Mediated City including symposia, conferences, workshops, exhibitions, prototypes, and scholarly outputs including books, book chapters, conference papers, presentations, and journal articles.&nbsp

Reimagining the Flute Masterclass: Case Studies Exploring Artistry, Authority, and Embodiment

This work explores the flute masterclass as an aesthetic, ritualized, and historically reimagined cultural practice. Based on fieldwork that took place between 2017 and 2019 in the United States, in Italy, and on the social media platforms Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, I argue that the masterclass—an extension of the master/apprentice system that dominates learning in the classical music tradition—is characterized by embodied qualities of artistry and authority. These qualities are not inherent, but are perceived through subjective, social, familied, and affective bodies. Chapter One outlines the main themes and the research design. Chapter Two is a case study that analyzes the concept of charismatic authority in relation to an established flutist, his former teacher, and the influence of the French School of flute playing. Chapter Three discusses the role of sociality in professionalization and the search for artistry in a ten-day masterclass. Chapter Four, a case study of masterclasses at the National Flute Association Annual Convention, explores how flutists perform identity within the “imagined flute community” through gestural excess and modes of conduct. Chapter Five investigates flute masterclasses on the social media platforms Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube and the impact of online media on artistry, authority, and embodiment. Keeping in mind Latour’s actor-network theory, the “post-internet,” and the centralized web, I consider the reshaping and disruptive effects of social media on the traditional flute masterclass. I conclude that in order to continue as a relevant site for aesthetic experience and meaning-making, the flute masterclass must fashion a disciplined authority that respects the identity and selfhood of the student performer

Sounding Cyber*feminist Futures. Speculations on Sonic Unknowns

What can the legacies of cyber*feminism offer towards thinking about sonic futures? Cyber*feminist thought and action since the 1990s has demanded that the intersections of gender, race, class and ability be included in the often allencompassing enthusiasm which dominates debates around technology. Crypton Future Media’s hugely successful virtual pop star Hatsune Miku’s character name Future Sound of Pop Music, Bern 2017 translates literally as “the first sound from the future.” Taking Miku as an example, I will examine what tropes of its history as a vocaloid software combined with successful marketing strategies have led to its huge popularity. Miku as a vacant feminized technologized vessel in which the voice plays a central role has a history which can be traced back at least to the sexist science fiction of August Villiers de L'Isle-Adam’s 1886 novel “The Future Eve”. Undeniably, technological innovations shape pop musical aesthetics, however my lecture aims to explore from a cyber*feminist position which tropes have transformed and which have, according to history, unfortunately remained the same in the larger ecologies of popular music. In line with a tradition of feminist speculative thought, I suggest that greater attention to the inequitable politics and economics of music technology production today will be vital in challenging notions of music technology in the future