After Audience

After Audience
A conference convened by the Midstream project

With Manuel Borja-Villel (Museo Reina Sofia Madrid), Christoph Brunner (University of Lüneburg), Boris Buden (eipcp permanent fellow), Lucie Kolb (FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel), Solvita Krese (Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art Riga), Brigitta Kuster (Humboldt University, Berlin), Isabell Lorey (University of Kassel), Kelly Mulvaney (University of Chicago), Stefan Nowotny (Goldsmiths, University of London), Gerald Raunig (Zurich University of the Arts), Stella Rollig (Belvedere Vienna), Ruth Sonderegger (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna)

Moderation: Monika Mokre (Austrian Academy of Sciences) and Luisa Ziaja (Belvedere Vienna)

Around 1968 and afterwards, art was understood as an essential part of life in which everyone could take part. Later, audience participation became a principle and self-actualization became a duty. The neoliberal efforts to “tap into” ever more audiences made audience development a major topic in cultural politics. Following the conference “Publicum” in Lüneburg in 2005, which offered a reading of reception issues through the lens of public-sphere theory, the eipcp (European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies) is again setting out to examine the practice and concept of the audience. What has become of this figure in times of the imperative of participation? How can we connect to the narratives and practices around 1968, which were, if nothing else, feminist, anticolonial, and anticapitalist practices?

In the context of "Joint Ventures. A public program on the relevance of 1968 in the present day" at Belvedere 21.