This book engages debates in current art criticism concerning the turn toward participatory works of art. In particular, it analyzes ludic participation, in which play and games are used organizationally so that participants actively engage with or complete the work of art through their play. Here Stott explores the complex and systematic organization of works of ludic participation, showing how these correlate with social systems of communication, exhibition, and governance. At a time when the advocacy of play and participation has become widespread in our culture, he addresses the shortage of literature on the use of play and games in modern and contemporary arts practice in order to begin a play theory of organization and governance.

This book engages debates in current art criticism concerning the turn toward participatory works of art. In particular, it analyzes ludic participation, in which play and games are used organizationally so that participants actively engage with or complete the work of art through their play. Here Stott explores the complex and systematic organization of works of ludic participation, showing how these correlate with social systems of communication, exhibition, and governance. At a time when the advocacy of play and participation has become widespread in our culture, he addresses the shortage of literature on the use of play and games in modern and contemporary arts practice in order to begin a play theory of organization and governance.

Participatory art practices allow members of an audience to actively contribute to the creation of art. Annemarie Kok provides a detailed analysis and explanation of the use of participatory strategies in art in the so-called ›long sixties‹ (starting around 1958 and ending around 1974) in Western Europe. Drawing on extensive archival materials and with the help of the toolbox of the actor-network theory, she maps out the various actors of three case studies of participatory projects by John Dugger and David Medalla, Piotr Kowalski, and telewissen, all of which were part of documenta 5 (Kassel, 1972).

Audience participation has polarized recent debates about contemporary art. This collection of essays sheds new light on the political, ethical and aesthetic potential of participatory artworks and tests the very latest theoretical approaches to this subject. Internationally renowned art historians, curators and artists analyze the impact of collaborative aesthetics on personal and social identity, concepts of the artist, the ontology of art and the role of museums in contemporary society. Essential reading for students and specialists, Interactive Contemporary Art offers a vital critical evaluation of interactivity in contemporary art.

Wonder has an established link to the history and philosophy of science. However, there is little acknowledgement of the relationship between the visual arts and wonder. This book presents a new perspective on this overlooked connection, allowing a unique insight into the role of wonder in contemporary visual practice. Artists, curators and art theorists give accounts of their approach to wonder through the use of materials, objects and ways of exhibiting. These accounts not only raise issues of a particular relevance to the way in which we encounter our reality today but ask to what extent artists utilize the function of wonder purposely in their work.

Play art' or interactive art is becoming a central concept in the contemporary art world, disrupting the traditional role of passive observance usually assumed by audiences, allowing them active participation. The work of 'play' artists - from Carsten Holler's 'Test Site' at the Tate Modern to Gabriel Orozco's 'Ping Pond Table' - must be touched, influenced and experienced; the gallery-goer is no longer a spectator but a co-creator. Time to Play explores the role of play as a central but neglected concept in aesthetics and a model for ground-breaking modern and postmodern experiments that have intended to blur the boundary between art and life. Moving freely between disciplines, Katarzyna Zimna links the theory and history of 20th and 21st century art with ideas developed within play, game and leisure studies, and the philosophical theories of Kant, Gadamer and Derrida, to critically engage with current discussion on the role of the artist, viewers, curators and their spaces of encounter. She combines a consideration of the philosophical implications of play with the examination of how it is actually used in modern and postmodern art - looking at Dada, Surrealism, Fluxus and Relational Aesthetics. Focusing mainly on process-based art, this bold book proposes a fresh approach - reaching beyond classical cultural theories of play.

Contemporary art biennials are sites of prestige, innovation and experimentation, where the category of art is meant to be in perpetual motion, rearranged and redefined, opening itself to the world and its contradictions. They are sites of a seemingly peaceful cohabitation between the elitist and the popular, where the likes of Jeff Koons encounter the likes of Guy Debord, where Angela Davis and Frantz Fanon share the same ground with neoliberal cultural policy makers and creative entrepreneurs. Building on the legacy of events that conjoin art, critical theory and counterculture, from Nova Convention to documenta X, the new biennial blends the modalities of protest with a neoliberal politics of creativity. This book examines a strained period for these high art institutions, a period when their politics are brought into question and often boycotted in the context of austerity, crisis and the rise of Occupy cultures. Using the 3rd Athens Biennale and the 7th Berlin Biennale as its main case studies, it looks at how the in-built tensions between the domains of art and politics take shape when spectacular displays attempt to operate as immediate activist sites. Drawing on ethnographic research and contemporary cultural theory, this book argues that biennials both denunciate the aesthetic as bourgeois category and simultaneously replicate and diffuse an exclusive sociability across social landscapes.