Taking Back the Arts: 21st Century Audiences, Participatory Culture and the End of Passive Spectatorship

Abstract

In the digital era, what cultural resources do audiences need in order to feel that they are authentic and actualized interpreters of the meaning and value of the arts? And, importantly, how do these resources relate to technological innovations that have come on-line in the last decade specifically in order to offer opportunities for audience participation in the hermeneutic process? Despite increasing evidence of the power and prevalence of emergent digital values (interactivity, improvisation and prioritizing of collective experience) in global culture, the arts industry in the United States has been very slow to respond to growing expectations, among its audiences, for access to social interpretation: that is, audience-produced meaning making that occurs in/through public settings and mechanisms (both live and digital). The essay traces the process of sacralization within the arts industry during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and explores its legacy: disempowered audience member who were taught to leave interpretation to the “experts.” It continues with an analysis of the way in which emerging digital values are reconfiguring the role of the audience as active interpreters of meaning and value. The essay concludes with two case studies showing how a range of technological and cultural resources are supporting a correspondence between hospitality within the arts industry and increased interpretive agility among contemporary arts audience members.