Networked amateur: performing arts and participatory culture in the continuum professionals-amateurs

The main goal of this contribution is to observe the relationship be- tween culture, communication and creativity as a complex phenomenon that requires us to follow the forms of co-evolution between a specific system of society—the art system—and the forms of communication. From the point of view of social system theory, and in particular that of Niklas Luhmann (2000), the art system is the place in which creativity is institutionalized and produces cultural forms such as communicable movements and artistic currents. Moreover the art sys- tem operates thanks to its specific institutions—art galleries, muse- ums, magazines, theatres, etc.—that is, through those social contexts that produce and circulate artistic communication. Nevertheless and inside the general theory of functional social dif- ferentiation it’s important to consider the relationship between the art system and its environment and the mutual irritability1 among the different functional systems of the society. The main systemic rela- tionship to observe, and the one that concerns us here, is between art and media. From its beginnings art has interacted with technology and has undertaken a continuous exchange with the media which has as- similated languages, aesthetics and logics. On this basis, the reflection on creativity and culture must take account of changes in communication. More precisely, we face a change of scenario and read it in a systemic and mediological key. From the systemic perspective we must observe the change of scenario from the point of view of social complexity; from the mediologic perspective, we must highlight the complexity of communication. In other words, the social complexity— which in our terms is the complexity of communication—is closely linked to the evolution of the media. That’s why the world-society (Luhmann 1997), which is the society formed by all possible communi- cations, emerges in a relation of homology with the context of global communication of the world-media (Boccia Artieri 2004). In this sense, the media should be considered as contexts of individual and collective experience and not “simple” tools for the transmission of information. This character of the media concerns the communication of the whole society and the way in which individuals participate in the communication and it is highlighted by the art system and the creative processes in the broadest sense. In fact, we will try to see how creativ- ity is a process that has spread culturally in relation to the evolution of the media and even more evidently with the digital culture. There are many contexts of the society in which it is possible to observe this trend. As mentioned above, however, art and creativity are the privi- leged places to observe this process and its steps. In the first section we will show how the evolution of the relationship between media— in its digital perspective—and society has changed individuals’ per- ception of their positioning in communication, even at the collective level as audience, public, consumers and citizens. This process created a suitable context for the emergence of a figure we call networked amateurs. This figure becomes central to the analysis of the system of art and creativity. The art system, as explained in the second section, evolved under the influence of the artistic avant-garde who conceived public participation as the goal of art. This principle is now being en- couraged by the language of the digital offering a spreadability of the artistic gesture in connection with the spread of the reality of the net- worked amateurs. A series of examples of projects and artistic works—both in visual art and in the field of theatre performance—in the third section show how the engagement of the spectator has be- come a central element in the creative process. But this type of crea- tive process remains internal to the art system, showing the self- 64 The Network Amateur reference and closing operation of the system. At the same time the artistic gesture, such as aesthetic widespread gesture, finds a way to express itself and be seen in the digital environment, in particular, as we explain in the fourth section, in the social network sites— especially those based on images, such as Instagram—and online worlds—such as Second Life.