O TEMELJNOJ ODGOVORNOSTI PUBLIKE – NA PRIMJERIMA IZ IZVEDBENIH UMJETNOSTI
ON THE FUNDAMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE AUDIENCE: EXAMPLES FROM THE PERFORMING ARTS

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, I propose an approach to the debate about responsibility in art that places the audience’s responsibility at the center, a factor often neglected in previous philosophical and aesthetic discussions. In contrast to the usual approaches that concentrate on the responsibility of the author and the work of art, this approach emphasizes the triple dimension of the fundamental responsibility of the audience: responsibility towards the work of art, towards ourselves, and towards the society in which we live and act. Starting from the assumption that the role of the audience is active and not passive, I analyze several examples from contemporary performing arts to show how the audience faces moral, epistemological, and social issues during participation in an artistic act. In this sense, the work relies on the theoretical propositions of aesthetic and ethical criticism of art (Nannicelli, Carroll, Kieran, Gaut, Nussbaum, Ranciere). It connects them with concrete examples of its performance, where the audience becomes an active participant: from Zoja Sirovec’s work Apply and become an ambassador of beauty, to Dušan Jovanović’s play Papila Pupilija, i papa. Janše, to the performance of Guillermo Vargas Exposicion No.1. The analyzed examples raise the question of boundaries between aesthetic and moral responsibility, as well as the relationship between artistic autonomy and social action. Special attention is paid to situations in which the audience participates in ethically problematic acts—either through active consent or passive observation—and the possible forms of responsibility that result from this. By introducing the concept of the fundamental responsibility of the audience, it seeks to show that entering the world of art does not suspend, but rather reshapes our moral obligations, opening up space for reflection on the complex relationships between action, interpretation, and testimony. I conclude the paper with the thesis that it is necessary to develop awareness of the audience as an active, conscious, and responsible participant in the artistic process, whose decisions and reactions are an integral part of the moral and social horizon of the work of art. The fundamental responsibility of the audience, as I propose it here, does not set normative rules but encourages reflection on how we participate in the artistic world and the possibilities of ethical action within it.

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