ABSTRACT

Symphony orchestras today acknowledge the need to make their art relevant again in today's societies and innovate their practices. When these innovations regard audience participation, they challenge the ritualised formats of classical music performance and disrupt normative, social, and artistic traditions. The orchestra therefore presents an interesting case to develop a better understanding of the value-laden dynamics of innovation in public participation. Implicit notions of an ‘ideal public’ and its desirable behaviour often structure the design, set-up, and assessment of participatory innovations. Fieldwork during the Empty Minds concerts, that the South Netherlands Philharmonic organised in 2018 to innovate participation, supports this claim.

The organisers aimed to assign new participatory roles to the audience. Throughout the organisational process, three forms of frictions developed. The hierarchical pattern of symphonic concerts conflicted with the plan for new audience participation, material routines were challenged, and during the actual concerts, audience members did not participate in new ways. The observed frictions show that what matters artistically cannot be separated from how the performance is organised: artistic qualities emerge in and through socio-material practice. What comes to count as desirable public participation is thus not a given, but needs to be continuously articulated, negotiated and constructed.

摘要

如今，交响乐团认识到有必要使他们的艺术在当今社会中再次与时俱进，并创新其做法。当这些创新涉及听众的参与时，它们挑战了古典音乐表演的仪式形式，并破坏了规范，社会和艺术传统。因此，乐团提出了一个有趣的案例，以更好地了解公众参与中创新的价值驱动。“理想公众”的隐含概念及其期望的行为通常构成参与式创新的设计，设置和评估。由南荷兰爱乐乐团于2018年组织的，旨在创新参与方式的《虚无心》音乐会的现场工作支持了这一主张。

组织者旨在为观众分配新的参与角色。在整个组织过程中，形成了三种形式的摩擦。交响音乐会的分级模式与新观众的参与计划相抵触，物质惯例受到挑战，在实际音乐会中，观众成员没有以新的方式参与。观察到的摩擦表明，艺术上重要的事情不能与表演的组织方式分开：艺术品质是在社会物质实践中以及通过社会物质实践而出现的。因此，没有一个所谓的理想的公众参与的概念，而是需要不断地阐明，谈判和构建。