Divisive dramaturgy: community engagement in contemporary mediated publics

This article undertakes a close case study of Public and the larger contexts of its production in order to unpack these questions and explore how mediated, site-specific performance might engage contemporary publics, using what I wish to term a ‘divisive dramaturgy’. I use this term to point toward the way Public creates multiple audiences and positions them, over its duration, in a series of distinct relationships. In doing so, I argue that Public transposes a series of concerns surrounding the corporate provision of contemporary public spaces, both actual and virtual, and suggests an innovative artistic response to the complex layering of networks that comprise (and compromise) the contemporary public sphere.