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CU71016A - Practices of the Cultural Industry What is the role of the stage crew within the cycle of production of performing arts?

23 April 2017

1. Introduction

Standing under the light or standing in the darkness. There is a crucial difference

between those two experiences for both individuals: the person who, from a distance,

observes such a scene and for the person who stands there. We are not exclusively

talking about the symbolic differences, which can lead us to classic dichotomies as good

and evil; life and death; pure and corrupted. The act of placing something –or someone–

in an area where it can be visible (or invisible) gives the observer a message about the

value of what is being presented: what someone consider is worth being observed and

what is not worth paying attention. The place occupied by the object or individual inside

a specific power structure.

Here, we are referring to those spaces where artificial lighting is present, brought

by the will of an individual –or group of people– who gets to decide what belongs

where. There are few places where we can encounter a constant and evident dialogue

between light and darkness, that is why a performing arts scenario is the perfect location

to reflect about these dynamics; because everything happening in it operates from a

premise of light or the absence of light. Separate ambiences used to suggest the

spectator what he/she is invited to watch and what information is supposed to be

missed. Overlooked. Throughout this essay we are going to pay attention to that

difference, locating our analysis within the dynamics of a stage; but also within a bigger

and wider production and working system operating in the contemporary world. With

that aim, we are going to focus our analysis on the concept of immaterial labour –as

understood and analysed by Maurizio Lazzarato (1996)– to build up a wide frame that

will allow us to understand the performing arts as an industry that does not produce

objects as commodities, and functions under a seemingly different cycle of production,

one presented as non-vertical and non-hierarchical.

In this setting of new social relations inside the chain of production, new and

different interactions with the previous 'consumers' and new kinds of commodities –that

are not meant to be destroyed– there is a strong need to rethink the exclusions that are

still being experienced; perhaps, even more intensively than before. How are agents

being excluded inside a system where hierarchies seem unclear? Who stands in the

base? Lazzarato argued that the organisation of the cycle of production of immaterial

labour might not be that obvious to the observer, because it has been remove from the

four walls of a factory (1996, p.136). However, that is an invitation to further analysis

on alternative spaces of production, in order to understand –and make evident– those

existing organisations, and also the current rank that may lie underneath the surface.

For that purpose, we are going to centre our attention on the –perhaps– classic

opposition between the creative act and the maintenance act, as two actions that share

common grounds –as they take place within the same space– but still remain separate

within the production cycle of the performing arts. We argue that both, the innovative

and the maintenance are indispensable and dialogical parts of the creative/production

process; following the ideas presented by Steven Jackson (2014) about the crack as a

trigger for creation/production. In his own words, "the world is always breaking; it's in

its nature to break. That breaking is generative and productive. (...)" (p.223) The author

of this text refers to the activity of media and technology, but we are taking his ideas

and applying them to a different context: an analysis of the performance inside the

structure of a theatre, where innovation and maintenance also have an important and

constant presence, generally affected and valued by their presence under the light, or

their actions tanking place within the shadows.

That difference –between what we, as observers, can recognize and identify and

what we only see as distant dark shapes– will be insightful for our understanding of this

new production chain, but also for our understanding of the social relations that take

place inside of it; relations in a so-called collective 'learning process', where expulsions

–if any– are embodied and represented in new, several, diverse ways.

2. Immaterial labour: inclusions and expulsions

When discussing the concept of 'industry' as the system, mechanism or space

designated to produce something we meet a recurrent connection to the factory, as the

quintessential location where workers, with separate and specialised roles, manufacture

things –commodities– under a Fordist model of production. However, the mentioned

model belongs to an economic and work structure from a different time and social

context, and offers a restricted perspective to understand the processes of production

today, as it excludes several activities that can be incorporated now under the concept of

'immaterial labour'; the kind of labour that generates the informational and cultural

content of a commodity. (Lazzarato 1996, p.132)

Maurizio Lazzarato presented the concept of 'immaterial labour' as a more

accurate way to conceive work –and the power relations that have risen as a

consequence of it– in the post-industrial world. This new approach to labour was

envisaged in a setting where modes of production and relations have, apparently,

changed and can be now identified as broader ideas, when compared to the previous

ones. In this context, the concept of 'work' is reconstructed and now involves a wider

range of activities that were not usually recognized as work (p.132). Thus, the

emergence of "immaterial labour" is connected to the blurring of the division between

labour and leisure activities, or even the arts; and sets the ground –and gives us tools–

for the understanding and analysis of the culture industry: a series of activities where

the ideas and the execution (or the mental and manual labour) are no longer opposed or

separated.

The presence of an industry of cultural 'goods' triggered some transcendental

inquiries as, perhaps, the important –and also permanent– question about the arts being

created under classical industrial conditions: can we talk about arts being mass-

produced? Certainly, this topic has been widely discussed among artists, who deny the

possibility of an industrial production of the arts, or even talk about the death of art, as

we knew it. This happens because the arts –specifically performing arts as theatre,

dance or performance– face the difficult task to be understood in terms of industrial

production due to a prevailing connection with an out-dated labour structure. Where

production happens exclusively inside a factory, and where objects, as commodities, are

ensemble. Lazzarato puts emphasis on the nature and characteristics of immaterial

labour, giving us some keys to overcome this challenge:

"The particularity of the commodity produced through immaterial labour consists in the fact that it is not destroyed in the act of consumption but rather it enlarges, transforms and creates the "ideological" and cultural environment of the consumer (...) it transforms the person who uses it" (1994, p.137)

The production of performing arts indeed offers a commodity that cannot be

destroyed, one that is transformed through contact with an audience or spectator, and

that also transforms the person who receives or goes through this commodified

experience. From these ideas, we can acknowledge one additional, yet crucial,

characteristic of the 'immaterial labour' as understood by Lazzarato, and it is related to

the transformation of the relationships between the workers –within a labour division–

and between the worker and the consumer. For the author, there's a shift from the logic

of 'supply and demand' to a new production-consumption relationship (p.140) where the

consumer (or the spectator, in this specific ground) is no longer restricted to the act of

'consuming' but is able to acquire a more active –productive– role. This introduces a

profile of the spectator in the same line of the approach to the topic of Jacques Ranciere,

who understands the observer as active, as a body that is being 'moved' by the body that

is presented in front of her/him on stage. (2009, p.3) Finally, Lazzarato sum up these

ideas as: "It seems, then, that the post industrial commodity is the result of a creative

process that involves both the producer and the consumer" (1994, p.141).

There is another transformation from a previous model of production to the rise

of 'immaterial labour', which is perhaps more central to our analysis: the blurring of the

roles in the production process. An author is not only an author anymore. She / he–

under this new approach to the cycle of production– occupies several roles and might be

in charge of every aspect of the production process, within the intellectual, the manual

or the entrepreneurial. This implies that the worker is no longer located at the bottom of

the chain of production, due to its 'brand new' capacity regarding decision-making.

Seems like today, we all are 'the worker' and we all have the possibility to participate in

the decision-making, instead of being "subjected to a simple command" (1996, p.134).

This idea is presented to us as a seemingly disappearance of the hierarchies in

production, a sort of accessible realm, where divisions are no longer operating and

where the classic definitions of work and workforce are being constantly questioned.

Has capitalist production really experienced a transformation of the oppositions

on topics as economy, power and knowledge? Are we experiencing the transformation

of the social relations within the cycle of production? Can we look at this setting as

different? About this, Lazzarato himself thought this system is opening up antagonisms

and contradictions that demand "new form of exposition". (1996, p.146)

There are a lot of signs that certainly conduct us towards visualising those

antagonisms. Saskia Sassen (2014) argues that current economic systems –although

successful in terms of growing– allow the emergence and coexistence of new and

diverse logics of expulsions. And, despite the fact that she is referring to physical and

symbolic expulsions from the mainstream economic systems and its benefits –for

instance, the expulsions of communities caused by gentrification– we are going to apply

here the term 'expulsion' within the dynamics of production, where we argue that we

can still identify an 'oppressor' and an 'oppressed' that stand at a certain distance, even

when –apparently– there is not such a visually clear hierarchy anymore.

For Sassen, the possibility of the 'opressed' rising against their masters is soon to

disappear completely, because 'the opressed' have been expelled (p.10) and are no

longer visible. So, what are the means currently used for expulsion if –under the logic of

a worker who is able to make decisions– we can no longer identify whom the oppressed

or the oppressor is? Sassen emphasises that, "these expulsions are made. The

instruments for this making range from elementary policies to complex institutions,

systems, and techniques that require specialized knowledge and intricate organisational

formats." (2014, p.2) It seems quite logical to think about more complex mechanism of

expulsion in a context where capitalist relations and modes of production have

apparently shifted. It is only natural to also detect a change in the ways of being

expelled. We just need to think about mechanism of expulsion in alternative production

spaces, such as theatres or auditoriums.

At this point, we need to go back to a single idea brought by Lazzarato in his

initial definition of 'immaterial labour', and it is related to the commodity not being

destroyed in the act of consumption. (1994, p.137) What happens if a commodity does

not get depleted from use? What happens when a commodity is not an object for use

and discard? When referring to this, we necessarily have to introduce the concept of

maintenance, which is an idea that was not included in the theories presented by

Lazzarato, but we think is perfectly connected to the model of production of cultural

commodities in performing arts.

Maintenance is usually conceived as the one activity at the bottom of the

production chain, performed by workers under serious mechanisms of exploitation;

minimum wages, housewives who receive no pay at all, etc. (Laderman 1969) The artist

Mierle Laderman (1969) spoke about this topic through her art; aiming to re-think the

status of maintenance work in public and private spaces, and by that, also beginning a

reassessment of what we consider 'work' and what we understand by 'art'. Generally,

these two ideas stand in completely opposite sides of the same system, whereas on one

side, 'maintenance' is set to preserve the new and is understood as a mechanical action

with no possibility for creativeness; on the other side, 'art' renews the excitement, it is

the exercise of pure creativeness.

We can follow the question raised by the artist in her 'Manifesto for

Maintenance art' about "what is the relationship between maintenance and freedom?"

and we can go even further and reformulate that last word as "What is the relationship

between maintenance and creativity?" Steve Jackson (2014) addressed our question by

analysing the topic from a different perspective. Jackson proposes a different approach

to the concept of 'starting point' (the creative act) taking decay or erosion as places to

begin, breaking the habit that usually associates this concept to novelty, growth or

progress (20014, p. 221). This idea represent a breakage from the habitual way we deal

with both –maintenance and the creative– and represents, as well, another way to

establish the cycle of production; where maintenance is no longer at the bottom, but is

located all across the production process.

If we think about maintenance, identifying it as a crucial agent in the creative

act, can we still see it as an expulsion? Is maintenance still at the bottom of the chain? Is

she/he still valued as less important within a production cycle? We are going to deepen

our analysis and attempt some answers in the following section.

3. The Stage Crew: innovation or constant repair

The spectators arrive at the theatre and take a seat in front of the scenario, where

the creative act will take place once the general light is turned off. In the darkness, one

light –or a group of lights– is turned on and so the spectacle begins, delivering an

artistic experience to the observer but also, a hint of how a performance on a stage is

executed, and who are the ones involved in the diverse tasks implied in this activity.

There is an apparent separation of roles within the performing arts act –a

division of labour, to maintain the use of a language related to the industrial production

inside the factory–. On one side, we have the act of creation, identified as the process of

giving birth to something new, to innovate; done by the person who holds the know-

how of a certain artistic discipline. And, on the other side, we have those who maintain

the creative act; the one that is both constructed and destroyed in every scene and in

every show, in a continuous cycle. Thus, the maintaining is performed –and we are

using the concept of 'perform' strategically– throughout the play; first, as the mechanism

to introduce new scenes or moments, and later, at the end of the play, as a necessary

reconstruction of the space where the play has been presented and will be presented in

the next show. This is a vital recovery from the destruction that happens on stage,

which may not imply an actual demolition of the set design, but it does mean that things

should be re-organised, returned to their original state, to give space for a new

beginning. This represents also a significant connection between the past time and the

future time, one that questions the understanding of the 'innovation' as the "start of the

technology chain" (Jackson 2014, p.226) or any other production chain, because it

introduces a circular cycle with no clear beginnings or ends.

The act of maintenance is performed by a group of people who is not involved in

the creative/performative activity in that specific space/time, giving place for a

hierarchy among the participants within the production process. Nevertheless, that does

not mean that those in charge of repairing the scene are non-artists because they usually

are trained performing artists, and that is related to the conditions and the nature of the

maintenance in this particular field, which happens during the play, mainly located in

the scenario. This might appear to us as a blurring of the hierarchies, as we mentioned

in the previous section, but we should first take a deeper look into the scene.

The scenario or stage has a central importance in the creative production for

performing arts. It is the place where everything happens, as it is the setting where the

creative-communicative/commodity experience takes place, to be seen/consumed by a

spectator/consumer. There, in the black box, is where the innovative and the repairing

coexist, entangling both actions as if 'the efficacy of innovation in the world [would be]

limited until completed in repair' (Jackson 2014, p.227). This means that innovation, as

well as repair, have to necessary work together in order to produce, making it difficult

to separate or oppose those two dimensions. Hence, as we mentioned, there is an

apparent blurring of the hierarchy between the creative and the maintenance, however,

and spite of their co-presence and dialogue in the same space, there is still a symbolic

separation between those two realms which is embodied by the presence of light and

darkness; but also and more importantly, by the fact that there is a subject and activity

that should be seen and a subject and activity that should remain in the invisible.

In the majority of traditional1 performances presented in a stage there are a

series of conventions related to light and darkness. For instance, just before the show

starts there should be an absolute black that would set a transition between the general

light –that falls on every corner of the room, spectators included– and the stage light –

that falls exclusively on the activity of the scenario. The light design is usually a way to

indicate the observer where the attention should be directed. Likewise, whatever action

happening under the light is supposed to be seen and, therefore, whatever action

occurring in the darkness should not be recipient of the attention of the spectator. But

the light and darkness convention is not only a simple theatre dynamic to enhance

certain actions in the scenario; it is also a way to distribute the value among the diverse

activity happening on stage. To establish a rank between what is important and what is

not inside the production cycle of the performing arts.

Notwithstanding what we previously mentioned, we have to pay close attention

to such organisation. What happens in the darkness cannot be understood as a simple act

of 'putting things in order', or the action of rebuilding the space after the creative

happens, because the activity of the dark is as fixed as the activity that is taking place

under the must radiant light. This occurs because everything –the innovating and the

preserving– is appearing in front of the spectator's eye. Each small change in the

distribution of the furniture, every wall removed or relocated has to be choreographed

and has to run smoothly, as if it were part of the major creative activity. But, isn't it part

of the creative endeavour?

1 When we mention "traditional" performances on stage we mean those that take place in a proscenium kind of structure, where the spectators are located in seats in front of a distant scenario. There are artistic proposals in performing arts that scape from that type of structure, or aim to break the fourth wall convention, but we are not including those in this analysis.

A brief review is needed before moving on. When Lazzarato discussed the

concept of immaterial labour he introduced the idea of a different labour structure,

based on a collective learning process that has now become the heart of productivity

(1996, p.134). This notion lies in the fact that one agent can now be in charge of the

intellectual, the manual and the entrepreneurial aspects of work; changing the way

relations of production were thought before: now, they should be analysed in terms of

networks and flows. Walter Benjamin already addressed these topics by recognising –in

terms of authors as writers– that the authority to create is 'no longer founded in a special

training but in a polytechnical one' (1998, p.90). Hence, the poly-function, and the

articulation of those roles, inside the production cycle of the cultural commodities is our

setting to think about the innovating and the preserving on stage.

Throughout her/his formation, a performing artist is trained to be on stage but,

besides an artistic discipline, he or she learns how to take care of several aspects of the

production cycle, from creative decisions to managerial ones, and also to the

maintenance of the 'artwork', that is to say, the scenario and everything that happens on

it. As we previously mentioned, this is particularly important in the context of a

spectacle, where an observer is invited to watch, and indeed is able to visualise every

little detail happening in front of her/him. Thus, in order to maintain a specific

atmosphere and not break the convention with every change in the scene, the

maintenance of the stage is choreographed and rehearsed as a crucial part of the artistic

piece: the act of cleaning is a dance of coordinated brooms and transforming the

scenography is an exercise of fixed movements. All strategically thought and

performed. This fact –the presence of a choreographed maintenance– is where the

preserving and the innovative meet and blend. Here, we can acknowledge the creative

work behind the cleansing and moving; recognising that everything on stage has the

same creative value.

In this context, the observers may perceive the maintenance as the primal action

that allows the innovation to happen, but a creative act in itself as well; performed and

directed. Why, then, the separation between what lies under the light and what remains

in the darkness?

When Jacques Ranciere (2009) referred to the agency of the spectators in a

theatre play he was introducing a new focus of attention on their ability to process the

information sent by the interpreters from the scenario and to affect them back.

Acknowledging the active participation of the observer in the performing act is, also, a

way to make relevant what message is being sent and how is it being released into the

audience. Additionally, and discussing the creative production by Bertolt Brecht, Walter

Benjamin (1998) stated the urgency of the artists (he actually meant 'the writer') to

reflect upon their position in the production process and the importance to bring that

reflection into their artwork: "Does it underwrite these relations? Is it revolutionary?

What is its position within the production relations of its time?" (p.101)

This information allows us to analyse the importance of the visual division

among creative and maintenance, despite the fact that them both are set and performed

on a stage under the same conditions and by the same agents. What the light and

darkness represents to the spectator is a reaffirmation of the cycle of production that

happened inside the factory, where the division of labour was also setting a hierarchy

among the participant individuals. This time is no longer a real division, as the

individual at the bottom is not easily recognisable from the theory; it is now a

exclusively symbolic separation. Perhaps, even more transcendental than before because

it is not emphasising an operating system, or a current position, but it is bringing an out-

dated system back and making it relevant in the present time.

The creator who follows the light/darkness convention in her/his artistic

proposal is not only suggesting the observer about the existence of a rank among the

activity happening on stage; but is also (actively?) forgetting about its own position in a

quite different system of production. Therefore, we move between two poles. On one

hand, there might be no actual reflection involved inside the production process for

performing arts, because that would represent a necessary transformation on the way the

'maintenance' is presented in front of an audience –perhaps, more integrated to the

creative, as a mimic of what happens in the actual production process–. On the other

hand, there might be no intention to "expose the present" through the performing arts

product/commodity, as Brecht aimed, from the perspective of Benjamin (1998, p.199).

These two options are equally perverse as, in both cases, there is no dialogue

with the actual system of production from where commodities are being created an

offered. Whilst in one case there is not a real interest –or maybe an intended oblivion–

in analysing the shifts in the cycle of production –where we all are inserted and occupy

a place–, in the other case there is an actual interest in emphasising the vertical structure

and making it feel permanent and valid when it is no longer operating.

Hence, as we already noted, the use of light is sending us a message: a

permission for us, viewers, to participate of a certain moment: an open window to

receive mediated information. The darkness, then, is where the irrelevant and restricted

habits, everything we are not supposed to see, a black void we are not allowed to

interact with. But it is still visible. It still has a voice and it still releases its own

questions and makes us confront them.

4. Final ideas. Before ending this essay, we have to be completely honest about the topic that

brought us here. There are a lot of mechanisms used nowadays to present the

creative/maintenance as part of a non-divided creative production in performing arts,

where every part of the spectacle is integrated and presented to an audience through a

wide range of styles. For instance, numerous performance acts are set as one-man

proposals where the maintenance activity is embraced, showed and thought, but not at

all hidden. Or, even, shows being held outside the black box: in the public space or in

alternative spaces like art galleries or classrooms. Thus, it is crucial –for this exercise–

to emphasise the fact that we are only referring to the classical theatre distribution,

where spectators are located in front of the scenario, and where scenes, moments or

transitions are conveyed through the presence or absence of light.

The starting point for this analysis was the significant transformation of the

concept of 'work', from a previous –even 'classic'– one, and the social relations implied

in the cycle of production of the so-called 'immaterial labour'. The rise of this different

kind of labour brought major changes in several aspects of the production of

commodities, pushing us to use new tools, concepts and to think about different social

and economical settings in order to understand how the cycle of production operates in

the contemporary world.

Despite of the apparent breakage of the classical hierarchy among the roles

inside the division of labour –now understood as a system of poly-functional agents

who integrate networks and flows– we argued, following Saskia Sassen's (20014) ideas,

that the mechanisms of expulsion did not disappear with progress or economic growth,

but are 'disguised' or dimmed and can still be found, even in more radical forms. For

Sassen, the expulsion of the 'opressed' from the social and the economy hegemonic

systems is making them actually invisible and when something is removed from the

visible realm, it is forgotten. Overlooked. This last idea introduced the question about

how are these expulsions depicted today? Which are the current mechanisms applied to

expel the 'opressed'? Based on these set of inquiries, we decided to focus our attention

on a commodity produced under immaterial labour, to analyse the mechanisms of

expulsion currently used in a space outside the factory.

By paying attention to the dynamics of light and darkness on a theatre stage, we

were able to notice that there are too separate dimensions cohabiting on the scene,

something set to be seen and something placed to be overlooked: a difference

established between what is artwork and what is work, to follow the phrasing applied to

the artistic discourse of Mierle Laderman (1969). We found that the creative act is

separated from the maintenance act despite them both sharing the same conditions of

creation, as the artistic and the maintenance are –both– choreographed, rehearsed and

performed by artists in front of a group of observers. Thus, the exclusion here lies in the

use of no light, pointing to the audience that the cleaning or the change of scenography

is not worth being watched and, therefore, draining the action of its actual creative

value. But, why is it necessary to emphasise the division between those two dimensions,

if the cycle of production is no longer functioning under such a restrictive, vertical

structure? Why is it still necessary to locate a role at the bottom of the production

chain? Why do we need it to be invisible and to keep sending that message to the

spectators?

The exclusion here is not applied to a specific "oppressed" individual, but to a

symbolic role, to a singular activity that is connected to the labour of workers obeying

to their boss' command inside a vertical structure. This is a set of components or

characteristics are mainly associated to the production inside the factory, but do not

belong to the production of commodities for performing arts under the system of

immaterial labour. The presence of a symbolic 'oppressed' –made invisible to the eyes

of the viewer by being placed in the darkness– is the consequence of a) the artist's lack

of reflection about her/his own place within the production relations of its own time and

place (Benjamin 1998, p.87) or b) an intended mislead for the audience, taking them

away from an actual system of expulsions that might be a lot more complex than this

hierarchy of labour.

This –perhaps intentional– oblivious look to the conditions and relations of work

currently operating, allow us to bring new inquiries related to the topic. In spite of the

use of other structures, spaces and dynamics inside the production of performing arts,

Why is this structure still relevant? Is it slowly falling into abeyance? Or, Is the

darkness and the invisible a necessary foundation for everything else to stand on top of?

Fortunately, standing in the darkness of a stage is not such a radical position, as there is

not ever an absolute invisibility. There is still a blurry vision of the movement beneath

the shadows, caused by the excessive shine of the ones who stand next to them.

5. Reference list.

Banks, M. (2007) The Politics of Cultural Work. New York: Palgrave MacMillan

Benjamin, W. (1998) Understanding Brecht. London: Verso

Debord, G. (1994) The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books

Foucault, M (1984) 'What is an author?' in Rabinow, P. (ed.) The Foucault Reader. New

York: Pantheon Books.

Gill, R. and Pratt, A.C (2008) 'In the Social Factory? Immaterial Labour, Precariousness

and Cultural Work' in Theory, Culture and Society. 25 (7-8), pp.1-30. Available

at: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/4114/1/In%20the%20Social%20Factory.pdf

(Accessed: 10 April 2017)

Jackson, S. (2014) 'Rethinking repair' in Gillespie, T; Boczkowski, P. and Foot, K.

(eds.) Media Technologies. Essays on Communication, Materiality and Society.

Cambridge: The Mit Press, pp. 221-239.

Laderman, M. (1969) Manifesto for maintenance art. Available at:

http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/blog/manifesto-for-maintenance-art-1969

(Accessed: 17 April 2017)

Lazzarato, M. (1996) 'Immaterial Labour' in Virno, P. and Hardt, M. (eds.) Radical

Thought in Italy: A potential politics. Minneapolis, MN: University of

Minnesota Press, pp. 133-147

Marx, K. (1967) Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Vol 1. The Process of

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Ranciere, J. (2009) The Emancipated Spectator. London: Verso

Sassen, S. (2014) Expulsions. Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy.

Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press

Steinert, H. (2003) Culture Industry. Cambridge: Polity Press.