The Full Story
In our inaugural issue, ArtsKonnect features a guest essay by Bengaluru-based artist Priyanka Chandrashekhar, whose practice engages closely with questions of performance and participation. In the piece that follows, she reflects on the role of the audience examining laughter, applause, and the subtle dynamics that shape our shared cultural spaces. Her essay invites conversation within the arts community. We publish it in the spirit of dialogue, trusting that thoughtful reflection strengthens the ecosystem we collectively inhabit.
Q1
So why do audiences laugh/ are made to laugh?
We live at a time when nothing on Netflix or Amazon or Hotstar is light, funny or romantic anymore. Everything is violent, mystery, gore, or thrilling or problematically all of the above.
So more than ever, we have the capacity for seriousness and if the businesses have done their research and algorithms are to be believed we must actually want to watch serious stuff and yet we want everything to be lighthearted and humorous in performances? And yet the audience seems to be waiting to catch a laugh? Is it an escapist laugh? Is it an uncomfortable laugh? Is it a ‘I don’t know what else do so I will laugh’ laugh? It is almost as if they are holding their breath and when they catch the slightest hint of humour, they release themselves into a roar of laughter.
Let us remember at this juncture that we live in an Instagram ruled world. Discernment has died a painful death at the idea of influencers. Self-expression is now more than just a constitutional right. It is a valued possession that can lead us to self-importance, self-worth, validation, belonging, fame, money and a sense of purpose.
Maybe it is temporary or even false but in the age of artificial intelligence, human intelligence cannot make out the difference anymore. It is a concerning issue, but we remain helpless victims of our own making.
Hence, my theory is that expression is not anymore restricted to those on stage. Everyone wants to desperately express themselves. Every space we inhabit has now become a stage. That is the consequence of the abundance (we wished for in our new year resolutions)–abundance of spaces to like, dislike, comment, share, hate, swipe, critique, appreciate, feel special, repost, spread amplify, resist, show-off (y)our fitness/partner/pet, tiring or exciting jobs/ hobbies, share thoughts, feelings, talk about ourselves and spread half-truths about our lives.
We have actively normalized and incentivized performance. The contagious (yet rewarding) disease of performance is now not limited to just social media. Since we live alongside, it has permeated our very consciousness and every aspect of existence. So how do we shut it down in the 1 hour that somebody else is performing? Are we expected to just watch or listen or witness? Not even take out our phones and post about it so everyone knows we are doing this cool thing of watching/ listening/ witnessing during the weekend? I suppose this is an offensive argument to make when all, every artist wants is more audiences. But the question is - are they audiences at all?
Next, onto the standers. I have gotten up too. Many times, out of peer pressure especially when a senior artist is performing and I am expected to stand up to revere their age and artistry. Some of purposely went late to skip the standing part. Guess, it is truly human nature to not do something if made mandatory and do it mandatorily if never told so.
But wasn’t a standing ovation reserved for something exceptional or touching? Are we really touched and blown by everything we watch? It’s a mystery how on so many occasions what I thought was underwhelming to say the least, moved someone to tears. I suppose it is true that all art (like poetry) will always be experienced from the reader/ receiver/ onlooker/ listener and audience’s perspective.
However, the standing ovation happens in the most formulaic way possible. As if instructed. So, is there something wrong with me? Are we so easily impressed? Is that bound to happen in a world where we are used to a 2-minute performance and suddenly 1 hour performance seems like an accomplishment of the highest order? Is it that we are so busy being stimulated all the time by screens that every and any performance moves us? Have our standards fallen? We are surely not impressed by the OTT so much, now are we? Maybe I am overthinking. Maybe we want be moved and standing up proves that we were (to ourselves and those standing next to us)?
Maybe we want the power to approve? Maybe we must like everything? Or maybe it feels okay to stand and applaud even if didn’t? Who would know anyway? Maybe we are performing and we need to perform.
The standing ovation and applause (and laughter) is the only way an audience is anyway allowed to perform. We want to belong with those who are nice, and appreciative? We want to convince ourselves that we had a good time like everyone else who is standing up?
Just good old peer pressure doing its work so no need to explain or justify or do the labour of thinking why didn’t we like it.
As audiences we encourage an artist incredibly when we give them a standing ovation. Sometimes it is undeserved and on most occasions, it puts the artist beyond question and critique. For art makers it may be a dangerous thing. For the artists who don’t get the standing ovation by some rare chance, they are doomed forever in self-loathing and under confidence.
Also, there is always the risk of audiences not being taken very seriously anymore since appreciation is so easy. Then art and artists can continue their narcissistic pursuits. Audiences don’t serve as a check point anymore.
Because they stopped being audiences when they laughed unnecessarily the first time. They are performers of the evening too. Just waiting to be seen (standing) and heard (laughing).
And now the harsh question – is this a Bengaluru thing? In the endeavor to create a safe space for every art and artist, is the city (read as “its people”) over doing its patronage? Is that why every artist comes here to premier their work? Because a standing ovation is ensured? It breaks my heart, but it might be true. Bengaluru is either too kind or too indifferent to care about a robust art fraternity.
These cultural spaces are now mere entertainment and topic-of-conversation for audiences or should I say closeted performers. They should be. However, it is disconcerting that nobody anymore has the time, the mind space and the heart space to question and reflect. It is perhaps a great time to be an artist in Bengaluru. Make art and get away with it. Everyone is performing anyway. Some, their art, some, their lives.
So, will the real performer please stand up? (Yes, I am a millennial and I know it!)
Q2
I have been recently reading about the philosophical concepts of freewill and determinism. The will of the audience to laugh (or not) or stand up (or not) is what we commonly recognize as freewill, which is the core to individuality, creativity, originality, novelty, freedom, desire, agency and all the other words that the arts world loves to throw around and celebrate. While in 2026, we can make tall claims of freewill, I wonder if truly we are free to will and wish and express.
My friend recently in a conversation reminded me of Judith Butler’s scholarship when they had proposed that – wait for it – gender is a performance.
Yes! Truly a new level was unlocked. Taking from that genius I wish to propose or rather (not so genius but apparent) question – is freewill a performance?
A conditioned one perhaps - conditioned by the trends and trappings of our modern, urban, capitalistic, “health conscious”, weekend living, over stimulated, over exposed, validation seeking, lonely yet highly followed, influenced lives? I don’t claim to be above it. While it certainly does not feel like I am performing, even my refusal to laugh or applaud could be touted as a performance. I am proposing that all of us ought to investigate (some more than others) when we are truly free, willingly acting or reacting and when we are performing.
Q3
Have the arts now (finally) become necessary for this twisted self-absorbing kind of survival?
The one true test of freewill is Bengaluru traffic. The most cursed feature of the city but truly a blessing for sceptics like me in this economy of convenience that we all live in.
Beating the Bengaluru traffic to get to a performance may just be true test of freewill (to turn back) and will power
So maybe one can safely assume that if someone traveled to watch a show on a Saturday evening, they probably really wanted to watch it. Can we? Would we actually have the time and energy to cut across the city just to perform our freewill? Is the value of having something to perform about so high? Are we rendered meaningless without it?
Before I conclude I must tell you I am a big believer in the art of performance (despite my seeming critique of it). I truly have been moved and had the opportunity to experience the power of performance. So naturally I also believe in not performing. Like anything else in life, the power of performance lies in the absence of performance by everyone all the time. If that kind of performance is not absent anymore, we have truly started walking the path on which performances will eventually lose their significance. I found myself saying this recently while discussing a dance photoshoot. Where the photos had already performed; the dance performance was unnecessary. During a rather boring performance, I have often watched the people around me perform, with their bodies, their phones, their clothes, their jewelry, their language, their networking banter and so on. The performance on
stage isincreasingly bound to fail (even if the IG stories say otherwise). In a world where AI has taken over all jobs, preserving this un-substitutable art of performance must be our protest. And yet we remain carelessly, selfishly subsumed by our performance of freewill and life.
Like I said before, I am not above it.
I too am to blame for the indulgence. For instance - I don’t know now how I would have written this had I written this just for my blog (which I truly assume remains in a corner of the internet unread and free). This, on the other hand, is not.
In any case this performance is over. Are you standing up? Will you? Maybe tomorrow with your artist friends? No? Well, in any case I hope to have convinced you that our performance is never truly over anymore. In the words of one of the most popular performers of a time that might be behind us- Picture abhi baaki hai (aur shayad humesha rahegi) mere dost!!
PS: I am sure you don’t mind the Hindi. Bengaluru is also the ‘most inclusive’ city of the country or maybe it (read as “we”) is performing?
Hence, I urge you to be suspicious of this being a performance of too much introspection, reflection and critique especially since Bengaluru seems happy. Who cares who is performing and why, as long as someone or everyone is and we are all enjoying. Right?