Call for Papers: Contemporary Art and its Audiences: New Interactive
Practices

Association of Art Historians Annual Conference 2011
31 March-2 April 2011, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kindom

This panel analyses the social and aesthetic implications of inviting
audience members to participate in the production and display of
contemporary art. Increasingly, viewers are asked to play roles that are
inscribed in works of art, to engage physically with installations, to
contribute to interactive displays, and to explore innovative gallery
spaces. Such unprecedented levels of audience participation challenge not
only the structural integrity of works of art, but also the ways in which
viewers conceive of their relationship to the artist and to each other.
By investigating artistic and curatorial practices that invite the viewer’s
participation in the production and display of artworks, this session
questions the social and epistemological issues that inform the nature of
interactive audience experience. What kind of shared assumptions (between
artist and audience and between audience members inter se) are required or
desirable in order for such participation to be effective? Are invitations
to participate in contemporary artworks embedded in the common social
practices of particular communities or do they create new forms of
community that transcend local boundaries? To what extent, if at all, does
the invitation to participate in the production and/ or public display of
an artwork presuppose, reinforce, or challenge the liberal principles of a
democratic society? By analysing the ways in which members of the public
participate (or refuse to participate) in contemporary artworks and their
display, this session asks how new interactive practices both shape
viewers and/or provoke resistance to works of art. The panel aims to
consider a geographically diverse range of artworks and exhibition
practices. Papers considering these issues are sought from the
perspectives of artists, audiences, and curators.

If you would like to offer a paper for this session, please send an
abstract of no more than 250 words by email to Dr Kathryn Brown (Tilburg
University, Netherlands) at k.j.brownuvt.nl. Submission deadline: 8th
November, 2010.