Virtualizacija performativne umjetnosti u doba socijalnog distanciranja / Virtualisation of Performative Arts During the Times of Social Distancing

Abstract

The times of social distancing and movement restrictions caused by Covid-19 have been marked by significant changes in all aspects of life. Due to preventive pandemic measures direct access of audiences to cultural institutions was unabled and performative arts moved to an online, virtual environment physicaly distancing performers from the audience. In this paper, we discuss adaptations that took place in the domain of culture and arts offering a virtual, technologically mediated experience, deprived from some dimensions of senses, emotional engagement, interaction and communication in vivo. Our research, therefore aims to inform on audiances’ aesthetic experience which was on the one hand devoided of bodily, situated performances, or on the other hand taking place with reduced number of spectators in an open space sites during the social distancing times. Key issues we focus on are transformations of performing arts in terms of audience participation and similar kinds of modifications that were not merely an answer to a current crisis, but a shift towards the new hybrid models of digital culture overcoming classic conceptual oppositions such as real-virtual, individual-collective and mass-elite. Our insights on performative arts and new media spheres hybridisation process as well as audiences’ altered position during social distancing times are based on literature in the field of sociology of culture and arts, esthetics and mediology.