Rogier Brom

The publication Being Public (provisional title) explores the question of what it means to be public and which role is played in that by the public space. Reflecting on existing paradigms and linking them together makes it possible to outline a clearer picture of a new field that exists between the public as body and the public as domain and of what this might be. Jacques Rancière’s idea of the aesthetic community is used to examine the emergence of the field of tension between a desired future situation and the expectations of the function that this situation is supposed to have. There is also the difference between pure presence and mediated presence, connected with individual experience and shared experience at the same moment. A better understanding of the expectations and orientation within the public space of a public eventually also benefits knowledge of and dealing with art in the public domain. This knowledge provides a more stable notion of actors, their behaviour and their potential within the public space. This can form the basis of a model that offers better insight into the effects of art in the public space (in the widest sense of the word). The focus of the research that Rogier Brom will conduct for this publication is on the moment when a viewer begins to take part in the game that a work of art elicits. He sees this moment as crucial for the creation of the temporary community that can arise around a work of art.

This research will result in a publication with the provisional title Being Public. The publication will include texts by several authors from diverse backgrounds to offer a comprehensive picture of what it means to be public and which role is played in that by the public space.