Shawna Dempsey

Panel Abstract: The line that separates private from public is often ambiguous — whether in daily life or in moments specifically designated as performances. This can be particularly true for those performance artists who choose to work with intimate audiences and relational practices. Their audiences — a very particularized public body — may consist of small groups of strangers who are encouraged to interact with the performer in ways normally reserved for close friends and intimates; or, the public for particular works may consist largely of friends, family members, colleagues and close contacts. This panel investigates the relationship between performance artists and intimate audiences as a way of interrogating the notion of public itself. What do we mean when we talk about a public? Are there significant differences between a personal relationship and a public one? How are differences between one’s public persona as a creator and one’s private self constituted when a performance involves treating those intimate publics as friends? What dynamics come into play when an audience of friends interacts with a public persona specifically constructed to be different from one’s daily self? Does an audience of friends constitute a public? Can an audience of one be a public? To what extent does the constructed binary of public/private coincide with that of art/life, and do these distinctions continue to provide meaningful ways of understanding personal, social, political and professional roles within the performance art world?