Disability, public space performance and spectatorship – unconscious performers

As interested as I am in studies of disability and media, and disability art, I have often been disappointed at the lack of consideration for how audiences interpret images of disability in analyses of media and literary texts. There is a paucity of reception studies by academics, which seems to have contributed to the dominance of fixed readings of disability portrayals, neglecting ‘active’ readership and acts of meaning-making across cultural contexts. The tendency to interpret and judge representations of disability through such ‘expert’ readings by scholars from disability studies, cultural/media studies and beyond can also work to heighten the differences of opinion between academics, disabled activists, media producers and wider audiences, potentially polarising opinions rather than bringing us together in working for common goals. If we are to accept that people are active meaning-makers, and we are to develop tools which help us in creating the cultural and media recognition we desire, surely it would be valuable to understand more about what audiences do with portrayals of impairment and disability, rather than assuming crude forms of cause and effect? I believe Disability, Public Space, Performance and Spectatorship makes a powerful contribution to these questions. It also introduces us to the contributions of Performance Art/Live Art by disabled people, suggesting how these endeavours might help to promote cultural change. For these and other reasons I welcomed the opportunity to read this book.

Hadley provides an erudite analysis of responses to this art, exploring the complexity of strategies and audience reactions to disabled artists’ Performance Art/Live Art, whilst obviating the need to go into theories of readership or interpretation. Instead, whilst referencing some of this scholarship (providing useful sources for students or other readers to follow up), she anchors her examination of a number of performances in the premise that these practices can be considered, perhaps most valuably, as ‘ethical encounters’. This intention is introduced, early in the book, serving the reader well as a guide to understand and evaluate the artistic and political contributions that are likely to be made by the art she explores (which would serve other researchers as a useful tool for analysing social interactions).

To explain her approach simply, Hadley uses (and provides basic explanations of) the ethical theories of Levinas (1996), Lehmann (2006) and Conquergood (1985) to:

develop a framework for understanding the way spectators are positioned in the performance practices of disabled artists, the sometimes unpredictable ways spectators bring their ‘self ‘ to the exchange, and the pleasure, risks and perils of using public sphere exchanges to try to prompt spectators to think differently about disability. (26)

This approach to the study of disabled artists’ work is first explained in the introduction, and is developed and re-examined as the book goes on. The introduction begins with a brief discussion of the difficulties many disabled people experience in everyday performances of themselves, the common understandings people have of disabled and non-disabled bodies, reactions to seeing disabled people and ‘the social relationships, scripts and rules that inform these reactions, casting the disabled body as a sources of curiosity, discomfort, stigma or pity’ (2). Hadley then proceeds to locate these themes in debates on the ways disabled bodies have been imagined by professionals and academics; including a brief discussion of the ‘teratological impulse’ (e.g. Garland Thomson’s and other contributors’ work on freak shows), and medical/diagnostic/therapeutic views, and the ways these work to shape our expectations of the ‘productive, useful, unified citizen’s body’ (6), understood as ‘normal’. Arguing that these models and assumptions act to cast disabled people as ‘all that is Other’, Hadley shows how people are ‘saved’ from ‘having to truly encounter’ disabled people, who are thus subjected to ‘the violence of recognition, categorisation and comprehension’ (7).

The chapters of the book are usefully structured, in that Hadley uses the four main chapters to discuss examples of specific types of art. In Chapter One, she focuses on works which have been performed in the installation spaces of public galleries, often performing ‘mundane moments’; these tend to create uncertainty or awkwardness in the spectators, who are likely to struggle with finding what might be perceived as the desirable response. Chapter Two moves on to consider a more ‘guerilla’ form of art which has taken place in public spaces such as streets, where the responses of ‘passers-by’ are crucial to understanding the challenges being posed by the artists. Although I learned much from these two chapters it was Chapter Three which I found most engaging, especially as this was an account of Internet art which was replete with the responses of spectators – these discussions featured art on YouTube (e.g. Katherine Araniello’s Suicide Messages), webcasts, the television show Cast Offs, and were also based on responses to live work such as Liz Crow’s Resistance on the Plinth and Rita Marcalo’s ‘restaging’ of her epilepsy in Involuntary Dances. These were all very well chosen in their capacity to create controversy and to show the diverse range of views towards the forms the performances took, highlighting the varied interpretations of spectators and the strength of feelings expressed by them.

The fourth main chapter, preceding a short conclusion on the (Dia)Logics of Difference, shifts gear a little to consider work which tends to ‘mobilize disability as a positive symbol of difference’, but this time the work discussed has been created by non-disabled artists who present disabled people as ‘an other’ using similar ‘ethical encounter’ strategies as the disabled artists discussed previously. This chapter focuses on the very different work of Guillermo Gomez Pena, choreographer Marie Chouinard and the television show Glee. The chapter asks a number of important questions about the absence of disabled bodies in cultural representations of disability. This is perhaps the most complex chapter in the book, introduced by a useful discussion which synthesises and summarises the earlier chapters before examining the strengths and limitations of Pena, Chouinard and Glee.

Disability, Public Space, Performance and Spectatorship has few flaws but, despite demonstrating the considerable talent of the performers chosen, it unfortunately reflects the homogeneity of people in disability arts, particularly the dominance of white artists (this goes unquestioned). The one exception to this is in Chapter Four where the work of Guillermo Gomez Pena (The Museum of Fetishized Identities) is considered, including a discussion of ‘the traits Latino/Latina Americans are associated with’ in US culture.

The author utilised online public arenas, collecting data which are freely available. Hadley handles Internet data skilfully, relating this closely to the work of artists and the responses of their audiences. Her insights from these sources are synthesised well with observations gained from participation in Live Art events, drawing us into valuable discussions which illuminate different audience responses to the specific forms of material. She also demonstrates differences between these varying art forms, and illustrates the ways in which our engagements with them can be negotiated, challenged and re-articulated, within different social and online contexts. Overall, her analysis is presented in ways which make it easy to understand a range of disabled artists’ work, the ways audiences respond to them and the kind of ethical encounters that each of these performances might produce. Her presentation of this analysis and arguments on audience engagement was conducted in a very dynamic, almost gripping, manner – the pages turned quickly in these sections of the book, such was the way she unfolded these stories of audience discussion, dialogue and conflict. This was especially true for her explanations of art on online sites.

This is a book which should be read by many scholars, across several disciplines. It covers new ground which has particular resonance to disability studies, cultural/media studies and performing arts – particularly to people working within Performance Art/Live Art and Reception Studies. It does an important job in its capacity to analyse and understand interactions of ‘spectators’ with disabled people, without separating these two into mutually exclusive categories, thus avoiding the essentialism of constructing non-disabled and disabled ‘gazes’. The book also offers useful tools to use in understanding the construction, maintenance, circulation and potential re-constructions of images of impairment and disability, and provides us with valuable illustrations of disabled performers’ work.

I would heartily recommend Disability, Public Space, Performance and Spectatorship to everyone – media, theatre, films and art practitioners, students, academics, anyone who works in caring or legislating for the lives of disabled people, PIP assessors or anyone who is likely to see and communicate with disabled people – as I said, everyone should read this book.

Alison Wilde
Leeds Beckett University, UK
[email protected]
© 2016 Alison Wilde
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2016.1208987