This article uses Nicholas Bourriaud's theorizing of "relational aesthetics" to consider the mechanics that facilitate strong subcultural ties amongst participants of small-scale, "boutique" festivals. Relational aesthetics describes art that takes human interaction as its theoretical horizon, where art works are envisioned primarily as social interstices. Using California's Raindance Campout as a case study, I argue that festivals may be viewed as a form of relational art, where organizers create environments that prompt meaningful human performance. Building on critiques of the revolutionary energy Bourriaud invests in his concept, I propose that we might productively understand relational aesthetics as an indeterminate technology always adaptable to particular political ideologies. I use art present at Raindance to illuminate some of the event's unspoken political prerogatives; despite attempting to disassociate from the ethos of a perceived US mainstream, I argue that Raindance still coincides with logics of modern liberalism including consumerism and cultural appropriation.

This article uses Nicholas Bourriaud's theorizing of "relational aesthetics" to consider the mechanics that facilitate strong subcultural ties amongst participants of small-scale, "boutique" festivals. Relational aesthetics describes art that takes human interaction as its theoretical horizon, where art works are envisioned primarily as social interstices. Using California's Raindance Campout as a case study, I argue that festivals may be viewed as a form of relational art, where organizers create environments that prompt meaningful human performance. Building on critiques of the revolutionary energy Bourriaud invests in his concept, I propose that we might productively understand relational aesthetics as an indeterminate technology always adaptable to particular political ideologies. I use art present at Raindance to illuminate some of the event's unspoken political prerogatives; despite attempting to disassociate from the ethos of a perceived US mainstream, I argue that Raindance still coincides with logics of modern liberalism including consumerism and cultural appropriation.

The South African hip hop group Die Antwoord deploys blackface performance as part of a racial project that characterizes race as contingent and mutable in contrast to its rigid apartheid articulation. Examining the flows that carry their work transnationally makes visible the ways US cultural consumption becomes entangled with processes of racialization.

This article asks how theatre shapes civic space by examining the emergence of racial divides in the city of Grahamstown, South Africa, during the annual National Arts Festival (NAF). I track how decision making by festival organizers has relied on economic research and implicit artistic preferences that have resulted in the steady exclusion of artists from local townships. I argue that the presence of the NAF in Grahamstown creates fault lines that are not physical, but aesthetic, in nature, creating invisible boundaries that reward stage performances at the expense of street performances. I track a history of street performance at the NAF, with particular attention to its local mime tradition, to demonstrate how this axis of festivity was integral to developing the NAF's cultural cachet, but was systematically managed, policed or appropriated to fit organizers’ image for Grahamstown at festival time. This work troubles aspirational narratives of creative and cultural industries that South Africa and other African countries have come to rely upon as inclusive and sustainable routes of economic development.

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