IFTR Working Group
Institutional Aesthetics: Proposal for an IFTR Working Group
The concept of Institutional Aesthetics proposed here seeks to investigate the reciprocal dynamics at work between institutions and performance in the production, distribution and reception of theatre. Although interest in institutional questions is not in itself new, their application across the different artistic disciplines differs considerably. Whereas art history has successfully integrated questions of patronage into research paradigms this has been less pronounced in the performing arts. Although the institutional focus would seem to be particularly relevant for the latter because of their traditional reliance on labour-intensive organizations and usually expensive, purpose-built buildings for reception.
The group is particularly interested in theoretical and structural questions rather than simply explicating differences between national theatrical systems. At the same time, the international composition of scholars affiliated with IFTR provides a unique opportunity to test theoretical questions against a broad range of empirical examples.
The concept of ‘institution’ proposed does not presume complex organizational structures but also comprises avowedly ‘anti-institutional’ developments such as workshops and collaborative practices that often emerge in a symbiotic relationship to larger and better funded institutions. One task of the group will be to explore the different concepts of institution employed in different disciplines and see how they can be adapted for theatre and performance.
Theoretical framework
- Reformulate concept of ‘aesthetics’ away from the individual (Kantian) to a collective subject; can one speak of an ‘institutional’ subject?
- Investigate how institutional affiliations, loyalties and insecurities (threshold fear) affect attendance and reception.
- Adapt sociological and economic theories of institutional change for theatre and performance; concept of institution based on neo-institutionalist theory.
- Reformulate and adapt public sphere theory to account better for institutional questions.
- Explore the relationship between performativity and institutional aesthetics (see Argyropoulou and Vourloumis 2015).
- Rethink ‘framing’ in Goffman’s sense for an institutional approach. Goffman’s ‘frames’ are intrinsically social and collective, not individual.
- What are the overlaps with sociology of the arts, particularly Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘capital’?
- Disambiguate institutional approach from: a) analysis of individual works and artists; b) social history of the arts (Hauser).
Areas of research
- Historical perspectives with emphasis on path-dependencies and their long-term effects; questions of institutional change (sudden or incremental).
- Valorization of specific genres and practices which are intimately connected with specific institutions or institutional practices. We regard these as dynamic and subject to change, not immutable, even in so-called high culture institutions such as opera houses and orchestras.
- Institutional precarity and neoliberal cultural policy: how has the global shift to neoliberal economic and management policies affected the institutional frameworks of the performing arts?
- Institutional precarity and political repression.
- Reforming established institutions from without (cultural policy) and within (charismatic leadership).
- Artistic leadership and authority (artistic directors; Intendanten etc.).
- Artistic practice and institutional self-reflexivity on the part of artistic production that explicitly negotiates with institutions through experimental praxes from within, through and beyond them (see Shannon Jackson Social Works).
Work plan
Constitutive Meeting at Sao Paulo. In preparation for this meeting readings will be circulated.
List of prospective members
Joshua Edelman, Manchester Metropolitan University (UK)
William Grange, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Margaret Hamilton, University of Wollongong
Ellen Koban, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Annelis Kuhlmann, Aarhus University
Alexandra Portmann, Universität zu Köln
Pieter Verstraete, Hacettepe University Ankara
Hanna Voss, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
...and the members of the research center "inaes"