Performing the collective

Unrestricted The merging of performance into the public sphere has expanded the space for participation into urban and cultural landscapes through modes of activating audiences and audience participation. This movement towards the social was predicated, in part, by the historical trajectory of theater and performance-based art, placing it in the lineage of the avant-garde theater and other post-war avant-garde participatory models of the 1960s and 1970s. This thesis situates the socially-based practice of the Los Angeles artist collective, Finishing School, within this historical and theoretical trajectory that extends the “stage” to audiences, and illustrates the performability of this socially-based practice, as it relates to their 2010 California Biennial project, 54. This thesis works in the realm of interrogatives (i.e. what are the issues that a project like this raises?), and for this analysis, I conducted fieldwork, which includes a series of interviews, archival research, and onsite observations, focusing on snapshots of process. My goal: to allow room for both self reflexivity and critical analysis within the text while emblematically emphasizing the role I perform inside/outside.

无限制：将表演艺术融入公共领域，通过激活受众与受众参与的多元路径，拓展了城市与文化景观中的参与空间。这场转向社会性的艺术运动，在一定程度上依托于戏剧与表演艺术的历史脉络，归属于先锋派（avant-garde）戏剧以及20世纪60至70年代战后先锋派参与式艺术范式的谱系之中。本论文将洛杉矶艺术家集体Finishing School的社会性创作实践，置于这一历史与理论脉络之中——该脉络将"舞台"延伸至受众群体，并阐释了此类社会性实践的可表演性，这与其2010年加州双年展参展作品《54》密切相关。本论文以设问式研究为核心（例如：此类项目所引发的核心议题为何？），为完成本次分析，我开展了田野调查，包括一系列访谈、档案研究与现场观察，聚焦创作过程的关键节点快照。我的研究目标是：在文本中为自我反思与批判性分析预留空间，同时象征性地凸显我在研究场域内外所扮演的角色。