Mediative performance of creative precariat in the age of digitalization

Abstract

In this thesis, I define the artists who perform physical performances as the artist precariat. Starting from the concept of precariat, I am researching how the life of the precariat artist was affected socially and economically in the transition from physical performance to meditated performance in the age of digitalization. Since this research coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, I will have better analyzed the companies that were positively and negatively affected by the lockdown and the dimension of precariousness experienced by the artists. In this thesis, the formation of mediatized performance (distributing the video and audio recordings of the produced performance to different media channels) will be explained, to understand what the concept of contemplation is, and to understand the possible losses in art when contemplation becomes cool (artificial) in physical stage art. In addition, I expressed what the concept of precariat means in different studies and why I need to use this concept in this study. Data obtained by semi-structured interviews, which were held with stage company owners and physical performance artists (snowball sampling) and participant observation in field, were analyzed by discourse analysis techniques. Based on the collected data, the relationship between transforming art and artist insecurity will be examined. My analysis is composed of three sections: (1) to examine the measures and difficulties faced by art center owners, audiences, and artists regarding digitalization with the concepts of Baudrillard's “immortality” and Barthes’s “the author is death”. (2) Investigating the social precariousness created by the financial precariousness of flexible working in the arts sector (in the context of age and gender). Examining the concept of “precariat class” used by Guy Standing in his work on precarious working and flexible employment by focusing on the artist group and adding dimension (depth) to the concept in this direction. (3) To explore the adaptation process of precariat art to mediation shifting in the light of Byung-Chul Han’s concept of the “Banopticon” and Durkheim’s study of suicide. As a result of the interviews and fieldwork outputs, the death of art, which was defined metaphorically in the first place, eventually turned into the actual end of the artist. I contend that creative stage artists have difficulties in the transition process because their digital media knowledge and skills are insufficient, rendering them financially and socially precarious. Unemployment and insecurity experienced by the precariat artist in the culture and art sector affect not only the artist himself, but also the family members of the artist, art-loving individuals and the society. For this reason, the artist's insecurity becomes a collective problem rather than an individual one.