Urban 'multitude' and the aesthetics of performativity: new forms of public culture

Abstract

This is an attempt to overcome the idea of the end of public culture. Parting from Paolo Virno's concept of 'multitude' and Erika Fischer-Lichte's idea of performativity, the author examines the phenomenon of game interaction, based on the physical co-attendance of participants, as a new form of publicity process which has certain political implications. After a brief analysis of the now classical view of publicity and its relation to the notion of the 'political' as developed in the works of Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas and Richard Sennett, she turns to the contemporary theorist Paolo Virno and submits to a scrutiny the concepts of 'virtuosity' and 'individuation' which are connected with new forms of labour and, therefore, attain a crucial importance from the perspective of political properties of contemporary post class society best described through the concept of 'multitude'. She then proceeds to comparing the new and the old models of publicity. Relocating a theatrical event directly into the urban space may serve a good example of the new form. It is possible to trace down the comeback of the theatre to the city from the point of view of the theatrical as well as urbanistic processes. Such observations lead to the conclusion that collective transformation of commonplace norm must have a political dimension. This can be illustrated by an analysis of the 'Remote Moscow' theatrical project where the public, who are both spectators and performers, are moving across the city on a previously unknown route, which constitutes the performance itself.