European Journal of Philosophy in Arts Education (EJPAE) issue 01 2025 vol 09

European Journal of Philosophy in Arts Education Editor: Ketil Thor Thorgersen Issue 01 2025 vol. 09 7 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 European Journal of Philosophy in Arts Education Editor: Ketil Thor Thorgersen Issue 01 2025 vol 09 2 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 CONTENT Ketil Thor Thorgersen Editorial p. 4 Cecilia Ferm Almqvist Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System – Learning to Play through Playing – Letter from a Piano Student to an Educational Philosopher p 7 Eli Bruderman ‘Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change – Strategies and Possible Locations p 28 3 European Journal of Philosophy in Arts Education 01 2025 vol. 09 Editorial 2025 issue of the European Journal of Philosophy in Arts Education Ketil Thorgersen Editor in Chief JPAE is proud to present a new issue that dives into the vital and challenging intersection between the arts, education, and philosophy. In insecure and rapidly changing times of global instability to the pervasive influence of technology in nearly every domain of life, the two articles both provide refreshing takes on critique of institutions. In such troubling times, the arts and arts education are more needed than ever—not as an escape, but as a crucial space for critical reflection, imagining alternatives, and fostering human development beyond the dictates of efficiency and technocracy. E This issue contains two articles that are united by a shared theme: both examine and critique existing institutional structures while suggesting alternative methods that emphasize individual empowerment, creative expression, and community bonds. Collectively, they encourage us to reexamine essential questions regarding the role and possibilities of arts education in today's world. I am particularly pleased to share both, as they offer intriguing insights on how the core elements of the arts— creativity, play, and imagination—can become levers for meaningful change. 4 EJPAE: 01 2025 vol. 09 Thorgersen; Editorial The first article is "Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System," by Cecilia Ferm Almqvist. In a unique and personal format, structured as a letter from a piano student to an educational philosopher from former Yugoslavia, Aleksandra Marjanović, the author provides a sharp critique of Western classical music conservatory culture. Almqvist illuminates the struggles of students within a "closed system" dominated by the master-apprentice model, competition, and un-reflected tradition. Drawing on Marjanović's philosophical ideas, the article re-thinks higher music education as an "open system" that embraces play, creativity, and imagination to help students develop their own "life plans" as autonomous, democratic musicians. It is a necessary and thought-provoking read for all involved in music education, especially those grappling with how to challenge conservative teaching cultures and the pervasive influence of neo-liberal structures on the arts. Following this is "Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change: Strategies and Possible Locations," by Eli Bruderman. This article takes a broad philosophical sweep, engaging with the aesthetic theories of Friedrich Schiller and Herbert Marcuse to ask whether art and play can genuinely drive social change, particularly toward Marcuse’s vision of a "society as a work of art." Bruderman argues that institutionalized art, exemplified by the museum, often fails to act as an arena for meaningful resistance, instead serving to domesticate and neutralize subversive energies due to its dependency on technocracy and private capital. The article then proposes an alternative model: "hypo-modernism," a form of grassroots, small-scale, and ethical socialartistic activism that utilizes art and play "from below" to effect real change within communities—a concrete realization of utopian aesthetic play. This essay offers a deep and necessary caution against the domestication of art's critical potential. Both articles, though addressing different fields of arts education converge in their call to resist the narrowing of artistic purpose and to actively reclaim the potential of creativity and play for building a more humane and democratic society. They 5 EJPAE: 01 2025 vol. 09 Thorgersen; Editorial powerfully remind us that the philosophical foundation of arts education is always a site for activism, whether personal or communal. I enjoyed the intellectual stimulation I got through reading these texts, and really hope that even you will get some valuable new epiphanies from taking part in the thoughts of these authors. Ketil Thor Thorgersen Editor in Chief Stockholm October 7th 2025 6 European Journal of Philosophy in Arts Education issue 1 2025 vol. 9 Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System Learning to Play through Playing – Letter from a Piano Student to an Educational Philosopher Cecilia Ferm Almqvist, School of Teacher Education, Södertörn University. 7 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Cecilia Ferm Almqvist; Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System Abstract This paper is formatted as a letter from a piano student in a European conservatory educational program to Aleksandra Marjanović , an educational philosopher from former Yugoslavia. The student was one of 24 interviewed in a larger study concerning conservatory cultures in Eastern and Central Europe. A narrative analysis approach was taken, and the student’s expressed experiences were intertwined with Marjanović's philosophical thoughts in the form of a letter. In the article the student turns to the philosopher, as she feels disoriented and had imaginatively read the philosopher’s thoughts regarding creating one’s own life plan through creativity and play (as in playful approach), as well as about education as an open system, where students’ actual social circumstances are taken into account, and transform institutional education to societal education. She feels that she has neither been encouraged nor able to create or follow any life plans through her education. Instead, she finds herself questioning the directions she was led in, if they existed at all. Her insights make her see higher music education, not least in the Western classical specialization, as a closed system, which makes her even more frustrated. Now, in her doctoral studies, she wants to discuss her experiences with Marjanović, whose writings recently became available in English. The philosophical exploration aims to shed light on and reflect upon how conservatory education could take Marjanović’s thoughts into account aiming to contribute to meaningful interrelations between conservatories and society from a democracy point of view. The specific aim of this paper is to present a view of higher music education as an open system , where students of classical music are invited to play and to create their “life plans” as becoming musicians. Throughout the paper the ambition has been to stay as close as possible to the original student interview transcription as possible. Keywords: Open system, conservatory, play, creativity, imagination, Marjanović 8 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Cecilia Ferm Almqvist; Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System Learning to Play through Playing – Letter from a Piano Student to an Educational Philosopher Cecilia Ferm Almqvist, School of Teacher Education, Södertörn University. 1 Introduction lexandra Marjanović was a scholar in the field of early childhood education in Yugoslavia. She was active at her most during ‘70s and ‘80s of the 20th century, in the time when several intellectuals engaged in social sciences used their scholarship to take a critical stance toward the ongoing social project of Yugoslavia and tried to contribute to the building of a socialist democratic society, quite different from the Soviet version, aiming to build a socialist, democratic society through a system of self-management, worker control, and a unique form of market socialism.1 Open democratic socialist society, with its unique fabric of political, economic, social, and cultural life, at the time was a vision shared by many Yugoslavian intellectuals, including Marjanović. This vision was based on a belief in A 1 Cecilia Ferm Almqvist, PhD, School of Teacher Education, Södertörn University, E-mail: [email protected] 9 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Cecilia Ferm Almqvist; Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System Alexandra labels playfields within the closed system; actually, you can have as many chamber music lessons as you want. More about this later. Something has to be done, and as I read You, Aleksandra, I wonder if (music) educational research could be used to conceptualize ideas on advancing higher music educational practice, beyond the master apprentice model,15 as You express it: “Within the already given and also the currently latent potentials of local societies?”.16 May be, music educational researchers have to “. . . break out of strictly academic limitations and delve deeper into the educational practice that should help them construct theoretical concepts and methods.” Not least this is important in conservatories, where the master apprentice model and limited views of musicians’ roles in society influence habits and approaches to a great extent.17 You stress that such holdings can contribute to change. You suggest that scientific research could benefit from educational practice, by: . . . providing a reason for changing preschool pedagogy from its currently normative nature into a practice based on theoretical and empirical examination. In other words, it could help it shift from a discipline based on (unexamined) rules into a discipline capable of exploring its own objectives and reflecting on its own practice and nature, considering scientific findings.18 This is relevant for conservatory education as well, as I understand it. I read about research regarding conservatory cultures, and not least analyses regarding making cultural heritage, tensions in fields of teaching and learning, and becoming musicians, state that change is needed, and that un-reflected rules to a high degree steers how teaching and learning take place, which I clearly recognize.19 The researchers, Ferm Almqvist & Werner, underline that this in turn influences possibilities of becoming, connections to society and views of possible futures, which they have also related to Randall Allsup’s thinking about open and closed systems.20 They underline, which I 16 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Cecilia Ferm Almqvist; Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System also recognize, that there is a clear tendency that behaviors are reproduced, which limits learning, creativity, and possible functions in society. Therefore, it continues to be a “closed system.” In the line with what You argue Aleksandra, researchers should be invited to and included in higher music educational practice, and why not, in cooperation within education and practice of becoming conservatory teachers, if such an education existed. Maybe, the task of research in the field of music education, could be to explore findings from empirical research, through a philosophical lens, as a base for further reflections and discussions among teachers in conservatories. This is one thing I have been thinking about since I started my doctorate. Your thoughts on encouraging a “mutual field of understanding”21 are really inspiring. Aleksandra, You challenge institutional education, which is what I want to do and this is also why I write this letter to You, to reflect upon how Your thoughts can help me in my re-think of conservatory education, and hopefully get Your reflections back. You also underline the importance of defining what an institution is, and in this case, conservatories are very specific institutions, that have run instrumental pedagogy for a very long time. And of course the teaching I have met, and the learning I have experienced, can’t be separated from traditions developed and conserved within them.22 As You state: “institutional education is a pedagogical form shaped throughout history of civilization by various social processes.”23 Although pre-school educational institutions, that is Your area of expertise Aleksandra, is a much newer24 phenomena or societal institution than conservatories, Your critique is, as I see it, not least in relation to my experiences and other research findings, relevant regarding conservatories. You mean, as I understand it, that it is important to grasp hidden aspects of institutional education, factors that determine it, and that the functional values of institutional education, through such insights it could be possible to “. . . conceive a different model of education which would incarnate the proclaimed objectives more 17 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Cecilia Ferm Almqvist; Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System fully.”25 Your impetus to form education as open systems, where students, as me, are encouraged to create their own independent life-plans is so inspiring. In such open educational programs, play constitute an important approach. You underline that play is “the main opportunity to practice the capacity for flexibility and the main factor in the development of that capacity and its differentiation”.26 I suppose then that play in playful ways, where students transform themselves into different roles, could contribute to imaginations of varied future possibilities and situations for becoming musicians. To use and play with musical instruments in varied ways and new arrangements could contribute to increased “capability for flexibility” and prevent “patterns of behaviors, and related psychological functions, from becoming fixed and rigid.”27 It seems so important, natural, and totally contradictive to the traditional master-apprentice approach. I wonder, how conservatory education could be transformed towards a system that stimulates and cultivates creativity through play?28 I think that Your suggested structural features of play “Imaginary plane” and “Rules” give good guidelines. To create or imagine playfields as arenas for learning and development where specific patterns are extracted in higher music education shouldn’t be complicated. You suggest that “acts, behaviors, relationships, emotions, perceptions, concepts etc”29 could be extracted from reality and become content of play in a model of reality, which I immediately could see examples of related to my education. In such activity, we could have the possibility to express our experiences “including feelings, thoughts, phantasies etc”30 and develop sites of our own as musicians. Then, with help of teachers we could relate to the demands of reality, to the rules. And as You write, we could find novel ways of behaving, through formalizing playful procedures. For example, pianists could learn from percussionists’ “rules” when it comes to what acts and behaviors that are expected from a musician. Of course, this demands that conservatory teachers develop knowledge about 18 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Cecilia Ferm Almqvist; Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System “structural characteristics of play” as it is “of utmost importance for the construction of methods and means for the development of creative abilities”31 among musicians. You talk about the importance of feeling safe in the relation between adult and child as a condition in the play situation, which I translate to teacher and student relationship. As I mentioned above, that was not always put in the forefront through my music educational experiences. Secondly, You underline the necessity of having “enough involvement and participation in the events that can provide opportunities to acquire living experience and knowledge and to be exposed to adequate, high quality indirect role models of creative behavior.” I have been thinking about role models Aleksandra. I had a wonderful teacher who just died half a year ago. She was like the mother, grandmother already, of three generations of, not only pianists, she was a pianist, but she taught also chamber music. We all had teachers who grew up with her. She was one of these big teachers. So, an important role model. Her approach was characterized by infinite curiosity and love towards music and this extreme engagement and happiness. She was always eager to learn a new piece. She was old, but I mean, she loved contemporary music too. She was open to anything. She was a great character. She was living and always full of high emotions, sometimes really, really, big. But she loved interest, she hated ignorance. She was also quite strong in her opinion, and she could also say some really hurting personal stuff sometimes. But she was so lovely. And she worked a lot more than she was paid for. Then again, I thought about this with role-models. What kinds of futures did she offer? That we female pianists should be like mothers and grandmothers, who worked without being paid? Of course, to live for music and engagement was so inspiring and important to take in as a part of who I would like to be as a musician or teacher. But, in this closed system, what did she actually contribute with? When it comes to rethinking and change, I mean? You mention pedagogy as an important aspect of an 19 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Cecilia Ferm Almqvist; Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System open system, but what does that really mean? What can even great individuals do within a closed system? Thirdly, concerning the conditions for play, You underline that they shall content “rich and diverse contacts with peers on the one hand, and on the other opportunities to be alone, shielded from the public and given space for non-shriveled personal, imitate needs, feelings, and thoughts.”32 I think that conservatories have a lot of work to do, to create such conditions for play, which according to You is a prerequisite for cultivating play, if I look back at my experiences, which I described to You Aleksandra in the beginning of the letter. It seems so important that this is done, to be able to let music students develop and use imagination in conservatory education. You talk about elements of play as “rhythm, balance, harmonization, exchange, contrast, connecting and disconnecting”33 which are also elements of music. So, music education should be easy to view and use as a playfield, where creativity is re-activated and developed, and where musical knowledge could be reworked and transformed, if I understand You rightly. But You also underline that this can’t happen in a vacuum, it must be related in and towards communities and society to have permanent and developmental consequences. If I understand you correctly educational institutions, as the conservatory, could be a place where creativity is stimulated and cultivated, if it is transformed radically into a societal rather than strictly an educational practice. I assume, this would require essential changes in the relationship between school and society and the social reorganization with the school as an institution.34 I also recognize such demands from other studies I have taken part of during my doctorate, for example Small’s concept of musicking and Veblen’s thoughts regarding community music.35 Your three crucial features of institutional education are easy to recognize in my conservatory. For example, that it is a historical phenomenon, which I already men20 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Cecilia Ferm Almqvist; Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System tioned earlier. Other similarities between pre-school education and conservatory education is, as I see it, that it is decontextualized, separated from a living context, and that it segregates students. You claim that to understand educational issues one must study consequences of these prerequisites in relation to musicians, musicianship, and education, and to both former and future experiences. Otherwise, education hinders students to master life problems, instead of the opposite, which is highly recognizable. 36 Also, I agree that conservatories are artificial environments, that “ ... reanimates already established (scientific) knowledge and its misconceptions, pedagogical principles and dogma, implicit life philosophies, and prejudice”.37 Accordingly, we as students, if I transfer Your ideas to conservatories, miss the chance to become persons for whom learning becomes meaningful. To challenge the artificial dogma would be needed to help us become independent and capable of taking control of our own life. Of course, as I think, this differs between instrumental departments, and also on teachers’ relations to the conservatory tradition. As You write about the need of posing existential questions: If education doesn’t pose these questions but primarily defines itself as technology, it deprives itself of dealing with crucial existential questions. But suppose the task of education – and, of course, of all those who practically or theoretically deal with education – is to conceive education as a means of human’s liberation. 38 This, again, is relevant to conservatories of today according to my experiences which I wrote about earlier. Also, Your claim regarding closed systems, that they build upon one-way directed interaction between teachers and learners, instead of offering all involved mutual participation, where both learners and teachers are actively and equally involved, can be recognized in conservatories as well. 21 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Cecilia Ferm Almqvist; Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System Finally, Your argument that modern studies of education, not least the ones who want to expand the boundaries of personhood development, must constitute themselves as critical theory of society. Following You, the task for music educational research would be to encourage awareness in the field of conservatory education, not to rationalize existing policies. At the same time pedagogical theories must take students’ actual social circumstances into account, and from there transform institutional education to societal education. This is labelled by You as a purpose of education as an open system.39 Hence, such an educational system would have to be entirely open to the immediate social environment, to the cultural forms that shape contemporary sensibilities, and to the life problematics of music students, including exchange of knowledge between teachers and students – shared life living – as I interpret Your writings Aleksandra. I think it would be fantastic if conservatories could change from masterapprenticeship traditions and competitiveness, “into the discovery of the world”40 where music students lived and grew, and developed life plans, through play, creativity, and imagination. Your suggestion that establishing own ways of “comprehending and communicating with the world”41 is the goal of education, so relevant for conservatory education, to be encouraged and equipped to create own life plans as musicians through “positive and supportive relationships” with teachers. You underline the importance of that students’ lived life are protected, respected, and enhanced, in such processes aiming to cultivate self-conscious beings. This in turn, You continue, demands partner-like relations between teachers and students. In addition, educational practices must happen in a variety of places, in encounter with different people, where students can observe and take part in many aspects of musicians’ life and work, if I transfer Your thoughts to conservatory education. Another aspect You bring up of an open system is that students are encouraged to interact with each other, aiming to develop towards autonomous democratic individuals and musicians. 22 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Cecilia Ferm Almqvist; Re-thinking Conservatory Education as an Open System As You also accentuate, such holdings demand “change of many concepts that regulate today’s educational practice.”42 What is a musician? What characterize musicians’ working life? How could flexible musicianship be cultivated? Hence, this shows relevant problematics for music educational philosophy and research, that would be important for leaders and teachers in conservatories to take part of and reflect upon as I see it, and which seems to be asked for in the research field as well.43 Thank You so much, for opening my eyes for these critical possibilities. I look forward to Your response. Yours sincerely, Piano student 23 Notes and References 1 Loren Balhorn, Die Anthologie (Suhrkamp, 2018). 2 Masa Avramoviç, Life-ful pedagogy. Children’s participation in early childhood education. Diss. (Södertörn University, unpublished material,). 3 Cecilia Ferm Almqvist and Ann Werner, “Maintaining and challenging conservative teaching and learning culture in conservatories: The need for holistic pedagogy in educational fields of tension,” Research Studies in Music Education 46, no 2 (2023): 257-270, https://doi.org/10.1177/1321103X231187766 4 D. Jean Clandinin, “Narrative Inquiry: A Methodology for Studying Lived Experience,” Research Studies in Music Education 27 no 1 (2006): 44-54, https://doi.org/10.1177/1321103X060270010301; Margaret Barrett and Sarah Stauffer, Narrative Inquiry in Music Education: Troubling Certainty (Springer, 2009). 5 Alexandra Marjanović, “Child play and creativity.[Dečja igra i kreativnot, 1977, Prosvetni Pregled, “Marxism and Education” by Ružica Rosandić, with some minor work by Ana Marjanović-Shane, and with improvements, help, and editing by Beth Ferholt and Maša Avramović]” not yet published in English. All rights reserved by Ana Marjanović-Shane, 1977/2022. 6 Marjanović, Child play and creativity. 7 Marjanović, Child play and creativity. 8 Gaunt, Helena, Duffy, Celia, Coric, Ana, Gonzalez Delgado, Isabel. R., Messas, Linda, Pryimenko, Oleksandr and Sveidahl, Henrik “Musicians as makers in society: A conceptual foundation for contemporary Professional Higher Music Education” Frontiers in Psychology 12 (2021) https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.713648, p. 8. 9 Helena Gaunt, Celia Duffy, Ana Coric, Isabel Gonzalez Delgado, Linda Messas, Oleksandr Pryimenko, and Henrik Sveidahl, “Musicians as makers in society: A conceptual foundation for contemporary Professional Higher Music Education,” Frontiers in Psychology 12 (2021): 8p. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.713648 Cecilia Ferm Almqvist and Carl Holmgren, “A Narrative Inquiry of Female Conservatoire Students’ Voices Regarding Futures in the Male-Dominated World of Western Classical Music: The Communicative or Controlled Mirroring Pianist Body?” Music Education Research 27 no 3 (2025): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/14613808.2025.2504407 10 Ferm Almqvist and Holmgren, A Narrative Inquiry of Female Conservatoire Students. 11 One of the countries, Estonia, Finland or Hungary where the interviews were conducted. Notes and References 12 Ann Werner and Cecilia Ferm Almqvist, “’Det finns stycken som ryska pojkar spelar’ Konstruktioner av nation och kön i klassisk musikundervisning” [’There are pieces that Russian boys play’. Constructions of nation and gender in classical music education].” In Klassisk musik i det moderna mediesamhället: Konstruktioner, föreställningar, förhandlingar, edited by Åsa Bergman and Tobias Pontara. Makadam förlag, 2024. 13 Alexandra Marjanović, “Critique of the institutionalisation of preschool education and theses for an outline of a conception of societal educational as an open system. A lecture from a local Yugoslav conference of the Union of Organizations of Child Care and Upbringing -Training the staff for direct work with preschool children in the light of accomplishing noninstitutional programs,” Novi Sad 1982, published in the journal “Predškolsko Dete,” [Preschool Child 1982/2022, 12 no. 4, pp. 403-411. All rights reserved by Ana Marjanovic-Shane] Not yet published in English. 14 In all three countries involved, there are possibilities to study music performance at PhD-level. See Ann Werner and Cecilia Ferm Almqvist “Marketing Conservatoire Education: The Employable White Musicians of European Classical Music.” In Higher Music Education and Employability in a Neoliberal World, edited by Rainer Prokop and Rosa. Bloomsbury Academic, 2024. 15 Kim Burwell, “Apprenticeship in Music: A Contextual Study for Instrumental Teaching and Learning.” International Journal of Music Education 31 no. 3 (2013): 276–291. https://doi.org/10.1177/0255761411434501.; Kim Burwell, Gemma Carey, and Dawn Bennet, “Isolation in Studio Music Teaching: The Secret Garden.” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 18 no 4 (2019): 372– 394. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022217736581.; Leah Coutts, “Empowering Students to Take Ownership of Their Learning: Lessons from One Piano Teacher’s Experiences with Transformative Pedagogy.” International Journal of Music Education 37 no 3 (2019): 493–507. https://doi.org/10.1177/0255761418810287.; Helena Gaunt, “One-to-One Tuition in a Conservatoire: The Perceptions of Instrumental and Vocal Teachers.” Psychology of Music 36 no 2 (2008): 215–245. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735607080827.; Eeva Kaisa HyryBeihammer,. “Master-Apprentice Relation in Music Teaching: From a Secret Garden to Transparent Modelling.” In Nordic Research in Music Education Yearbook. Vol. 12, edited by Sven-Erik Holgersen and Siw EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change are viewed as opposites, such as, technique and art, in order to create something new and different from their earlier essence. He spoke of a complete and final reconciliation between form and content that leads to a perfect redemption of the human being. In his book, Eros and Civilization , Marcuse saw “the erotic reconciliation (union) of man and nature in the aesthetic attitude, where order is beauty and work is play” (Marcuse, 1966, p. 176). In the same chapter, Marcuse continues with: “The play impulse is the vehicle of this liberation. The impulse does not aim at playing ‘with’ something; rather it is the play of life itself, beyond want and external compulsion—the manifestation of an existence without fear and anxiety, and thus the manifestation of freedom itself” (ibid., p. 187). Marcuse’s words resonate with some of Schiller’s ideas. Among both scholars, we see there is no play but, rather, with the awakening of beauty, or the reign of beauty, the beautiful aesthetic society is the unified form and content which facilitate the existence of a future society. “In a genuinely humane civilization, the human existence will be play rather than toil…Then, man is free to ‘play’ with his faculties and potentialities and with those of nature, and only by ‘playing’ with them is he free” (ibid., p. 188). These remarks may sound abstract, but in the fourth part of this article, I will present several examples that will demonstrate how Marcuse’s arguments correspond with Schiller’s conceptual roots in contemporary, realistic frameworks that are realized in a type of utopia. Museums as step toward a society as a work of art? In effect, museums could have established themselves at the very crossroads of utopian revolutions. This may have contributed to a change in the face of society while in pursuit of the concept of society as a work of art. Museums have all the elements of a cultural micro-cosmos while carrying the potential for a utopian revolutionism in the spirit of Marcuse’s vision, as well as the ability to create a better society as Schiller envisioned. The museum as a world of art and its wide range of activities—a large part of which is play activity conducted in the framework of museum education and 32 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change training departments—seems like an ideal platform for creating change and perhaps even exporting utopian revolutions. But this did not happen. With caution, but also with a certain degree of resolve, it can be said that a revolutionary call or action, even one that produces change in the long run, combining aesthetics and play, has yet to be heard or seen by museums in the world and probably will not burgeon in the future. This is despite the fact that museums today are introducing modifications in their education and training methods, and the role of playfulness is increasing and occupying a significant share of the museum’s activities. I wrote about this together with my colleagues in an article that indicates how change is taking place in museums as they increasingly turn toward playfulness. (Bruderman et al., 2020). In this article, we focused extensively on the genre of immersive play as adopted by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem (and then followed by other museums throughout Israel and the rest of the world, such as the Dutch Rijks Museum) as an example of the use of play as a way of bringing the diverse populations that visit the museum physically closer to the various objects in the museum. However, this playfulness and the art exhibitions on display at the Israel Museum, the Rijks Museum, and other museums worldwide that adopted playful approaches, did not in fact ignite a spark of change via social and cultural processes. In Israel, the country which I focused on, museums did not help stop anti-democratic processes that escalated during this period, nor did they contribute to a change in consciousness regarding the ongoing conquest in the depths of the Palestinian territories. It often seems that art as a utopian revolutionary tool, or the artist as a torchbearer in the forefront of the camp, as Marcuse depicted it, is neither one nor the other. In the following chapters I will illustrate the main reasons, i.e., a great dependence on government technocracy and private capital, which prevent museums and other cultural institutions, such as repertoire theaters, from advancing toward the revolutionary crossroad and then subsequently inducing change. I will begin with a 33 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change short overview that will shed light on the technocracy concept and then I will examine its relationship with art and museums. A similar analysis will then be conducted in regard to wealthy owners of capital. Part Two: Are Technocracy, Art and Museums Compatible? Before I elaborate upon the complex relations between the technocratic elite, art, and museums, I would like to review and characterize the concept of technocracy. Who are the technocrats? Who are the scientists, academia, and politicians that Marcuse has so capably described? I will use his definition, which seems quite comprehensive, and written without antagonism toward this class: Let us first look at the so-called new working class, which is supposed to consist of technicians, engineers, specialists, scientists, etc., who are engaged in the production process, albeit in a special position. Owing to their key position, this really seems to represent the nucleus of an objective revolutionary force, but at the same time it is a favorite child of the established system, which also shapes the consciousness of this group (Marcuse, 1970, p. 60). These are therefore, as so succinctly described above, the technocrats. In the second half of the 20th century, this group included visionaries, trailblazers, and futurists, who to this day have had a far-reaching influence on United States policy in the government, the economy, urban planning, and national nuclear policy. Examples are Anthony J. Wiener and Herman Kahn who were members and founders of the conservative Hudson Institute. Wiener served for two years as a consultant on urban planning in the Nixon administration. Kahn supported the possibility of a nuclear war, and his character was a source of inspiration for the satirical black comedy, Doctor Strangelove, by Stanley Kubrick. 34 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change The technocracy roster varies from period to period, yet it always consists of scientists, futurists, entrepreneurs and capitalists. After World War II, nuclear scientists led the technocracy. Today, the technocratic leadership is composed of the digital information elite. Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, the transhumanist movement, Raymond Kurzweil and the singularitarians—all, without exception, represent today the connections between scientific research, technological development, capital, and the often intricate and multifaceted ties to the corridors of power. The constitution of the technocracy varies according to the period, but not in the pattern of its operations. Even today, as earlier noted, the information sector produces (members of) the economic elite that continues to tighten its grip on culture and human society. This is achieved by means of a great variety of technological advances, principally developments in artificial intelligence and robotics that silently but effectively are eliminating numerous professions and adding to unemployment. We hear and read reports about excessive surveillance and of course in the reports we tackle on the ethics of artificial intelligence technology (Zuboff, 2019; Bird, Fox-Skelly et al., 2020). In the future, the numbers of the unemployed will gradually increase, and this silent revolution in life as we know it remains unchallenged, without significant criticism coming from the art world and certainly not the museums themselves. The world of science, along with its technological developments, has gained significant prestige in recent centuries (Houweling and Wolff, 2020, pp. 1432-1450; Sprat, [1667] 2002, pp. 177-179). The public’s impression of technology remains positive, and technological inventions are considered first and foremost a tendency that is favorable and that enhances the way of life. This is true even when it becomes evident that technological advances or inventions often carry a heavy price, such as: environmental pollution from cars, factories, plastics, airplanes; wars on a global scale; the nuclear race among the greatest powers on Earth; and nuclear accidents on an unima35 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change ginable scale, even in peacetime nuclear facilities. Despite all these, the prestige of science and technology has not been compromised. The relationship between technological advancement, capital, and the bureaucracy that carries out their development with governmental support has not changed. In fact, it appears that the aura surrounding these technological developments has in fact expanded, and attempts by members of the United States Congress to break up Facebook, Google and Microsoft, as major monopolies such as the Standard Oil Company were dismantled in the past, is not bearing fruit at this stage. Why, then, despite the enormous amount of damage inflicted by technological developments on society (carrying with it a possible undermining of governmental institutions), culture (leading to a cultural homogenization and the erasure of cultural differences and diversity), and on the individual level (turning the individual into an incapacitated person entirely dependent on technology); why, despite the “horrors of industrialization,” as Marcuse (1970a, p. 27) termed it, has the towering stature of technology remained so imposing? Why is the economic and political power of its developers growing? And why are most of us willing to go, like the blind, in the footsteps of the technocratic elite? Finally, all these reflections lead to the question most relevant to this article: Despite the obvious failings of technology, why has Schiller’s and Marcuse’s vision not materialized, and why have art, play and beauty not healed the sufferings of humanity? Part Three: 1. Art in the Shadow of Technocracy: Beloved Enemies, Play and Art under the Patronage of Law, Work and Planning Among the classes that formed during the Industrial Revolution, and with the increase in the scientific-technological mentality, especially among the working classes, aesthetic activities and play were considered a sort of out-of-place pleasure, a form of 36 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change social disorder, a type of activity that involved a malicious aspect, and sometimes also a source of political unrest. A similar attitude was expressed toward any creative activity that had no goal or purpose, and particularly toward the field of art (Marcuse, 1978, pp. 124, 125; Schiller, 1986). This perspective, rooted in the technocratic worldview, views life as one long and perseverant struggle to be powerful, to assume control, to gain knowledge, abilities and greater resources than others. Life is also a struggle between the individual and him or herself because of the conflicts it creates. Moreover, due to the incessant desire for power, society is continuously under the threat of destruction and disorder. However, to a certain degree chaos can be contained by culture if it is anticipated and domesticated. The need to domesticate chaos became a burning issue in the 19th century when Western society underwent a wave of shocks, i.e., the industrial, social, and cultural changes in Europe (Crary, 1999, pp. 13-14). Art, through museums and play, and later principally by means of television and sports, became the main tools in domestication, sedation, containment. These tools were used as a legitimate counterforce, a force endorsed by the social mainstream. Art and play are therefore perceived as a force that does not threaten the technocratic project and does not foresee a future, a force that organizes society on the basis of an aesthetic order. For the individual, the aesthetic experience has become a type of legitimate expression, a way of estranging and expelling anti-social drives and tendencies, libidinal excesses, aggressiveness, and all those other forms society does not consider useful. Through art and other aesthetic expressions, such as sports and play, the individual is allowed to purge him or herself of feelings of anger, rage, incompetence, incompatibility—all those emotions and feelings that if permitted active political expression, would threaten the normal course of society and cause disruption (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1993, pp. 168-169; Marcuse, 1978, pp. 118-124). Art and play are 37 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change offered as fantasy worlds where disappointments from the outside world can be resolved; they can be approached from another angle, redefined, replayed, until finally they are overcome. Thus, without the unnecessary risk of revolution and without the need for the corresponding suppression, and while even deriving a certain pleasure from it, humans thus accommodate the oppression built into their technology-saturated lifestyles. Examples of assuaging frustrations by means of art or play are also not lacking today: movies, amusement parks, shows, concerts, museums, Disney World, reality programs whose artistic and play value is very low but highly effective in draining excess frustration. These means also provide viewers with escape from daily drudgery on one hand and grant new validity to the individual’s self-abilities on the other (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1993, pp. 174-180; Haug, 1986, Chapter One). Art, in its many forms, is therefore an artificial Garden of Eden for the oppressed and a safety valve for the oppressor. On one hand, it soothes the sorrow and suffering of the powerless, weaker members of society, who are mostly us. On the other hand, it provides an illusion of power to those same weakened people, who, once again, are us. The art displayed in museums, acted out on the theater boards, played in the sports leagues— the playfulness inherent to all these, the purposeless enjoyment they all offer, the pleasure derived from fantasy—all these sedate the subject, while the real power remains in the hands of those institutions and their sponsors who control these cultural resources without threat from any social sector.2 In the eyes of the elite groups of knowledge, industry and capital, aesthetic creativity (that produces aesthetic order) and the enjoyment of this production has therefore a highly significant benefit: They drain energy excesses and channel the de2 On the dialectics between accelerated development and the need for control that is built in to modernism, see Jonathan Crary, 1999, pp. 13-14. In regard to art and culture of the masses, see: Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, 1993, pp. 178-192; Tamar Liebes, 2004, pp. 169-173. 38 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change structive potential latent to the masses into harmless amusement. The harmony that is a built-in element in the forms of art and play keeps society in line, and order preserves the stability of the general public and enables the sustained and uninterrupted planning of the future. Art and the aesthetic experience are therefore a type of beloved enemy—the same rebellious “other” who poses a perpetual challenge yet returns and is conquered and absorbed in the calm fabric of law and order. The capability of art to play this role stems from the canonical aesthetic ideal of “unity in diversity” that can be found in the (artistic) work (Hein, 1976, p. 145; McKee, 1977, pp. 14-21). The absorption of conflict and its containment within the ruling political system thus extends the ability to control the existing order.3 The social body, according to this perspective, is a complex yet complete configuration, consisting of a rich diversity of variances that can be effectively contained, a synthesis that creates a cohesion of threatening diversity. Rebellious gestures undergo a rapid process of domestication, and they delicately and shrewdly are transformed from a threatening essence into the fashion of the day, i.e., a conventional everyday situation (Hein, 1976, p. 145; McKee, 1977). In the present, various forms of high art cleanse and purify the blunt forms of protest of the past. Jazz and rock music, which were initially marginal phenomena, became assimilated under the label of avant-garde music, or progressive music. The Dada Movement, including its art techniques, was transformed from a movement that kicked against the conventions into a prolific source of artistic language and relocated itself at the heart of artistic consensus. Pop art, anti-art, all these and more were driven from the margins to the center of higher art, and their radical value was swept away in its own mainstream. 3 Adorno and Horkheimer in their article, “ The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, ” present in detail the process of how the hegemonic group, i.e., the capitalists, control through mass culture or what they call the “culture industry,” the social order that enables their rule. See Adorno and Horkheimer, 1993, pp. 158-180. 39 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change The political role of the aesthetic experience comes down to, therefore, the preservation and maintenance of the social status quo. In any case, art and play are used to neutralize feelings of disappointment and potential revolutionary sentiments (Debord, 2001, Fragment 58; Hein, 1976, p. 145). At the same time, the styles created by the energies of oppositional elements are restrained by processes involving the acknowledgment of the establishment and its support, and thus protestors and rebels eventually become assimilated by the establishment. The anarchy of art is directed toward itself, and at the end of the day, it becomes a victim of law and order. In the sections above, we have become acquainted with several critical approaches that focus on the subversive threat inherent to art and playfulness, and about the necessity to neutralize this threat. The ruling elites, who have in effect shaped the fabric of industrial-capitalistic society of the last two hundred years, have achieved this by channeling play, art and design into benign and harmless outlets. In contrast to these perceptions, there is another approach that treats the subject from an entirely different angle. The threat to order and law is not the inbuilt element in art, according to this perspective. The scholars who represent this approach put forward a completely inverse argument. They seek to find order contrarily in art, and attribute such importance to it that they claim this order is in effect the factor that constructs reality itself in society. The human creation, in all its varying forms, these thinkers argue, is a paradigm that enables most human beings to understand the world most accurately, including its law and order. For we understand the world itself—the world that we did not create and do not control—in the best way precisely through our little inventions, which are microcosms of world order. The world that is revealed to us in its barest form is a chaotic and incomprehensible world. It is an absurd and meaningless world and it will remain so if we don’t impose meaning upon it by using our ability as human beings to organize worlds of meaning of our own (Carlyle, 2005, p. 8078; Dewey, 1980, pp. 25, 49-51; Shusterman, 2002, pp. 97-105; Zeltner, 1975, p. 50). Consequent to these actions of a formal (in the sense of “form” and in distinction from 40 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change “content”), aesthetic organization, we learn to appreciate complex appearances of order that gradually increase in complexity during our lifetime. Within such a context as the above, the aesthetic ability is not actually a counterforce but rather a positive, obedient and amiable agent of political indoctrination. An example of this can be observed in Plato’s writing. In his essay, The Republic ( Politeia ), he explains about the importance of music of a certain kind. If children of the guards listen to it, a love for order will rise up in them, and this will be converted into a type of discipline and obedience to laws (Plato, Republic, Vol. III , 1975, pp. 260263). The same type of thinking is also present in The Symposium dialogue in which an initial assessment of beauty—whether sensible, concrete or material—is conducted, and which should ultimately serve as a step forward toward the appreciation and admiration of abstract forms of political institutions (Plato, Symposium , 1975, p. 139). This approach is also central to Kant’s aesthetics. In his book, Critique of the Power of Judgment , he writes about the imaginary force in charge of collecting materials and their assimilation before creating a conceptual order and imposing it as a form in the world (Hein, 1976, pp. 146-147; Kant, 1969, Clause 49, pp. 130-134). The two approaches reviewed above emphasize the power and importance of play and art, which also exemplify the role of a free aesthetic activity without a purpose. In effect, these forces are “recruited” for the purposes of governance, sustaining the existing order as well as the organization of the future by those who know what is right for society. On one hand, play and art are perceived as subversive and threatening activities, and therefore they must be controlled and subjected to the rules of law and power (the first approach). On the other hand, the aesthetic embodied in them is perceived as rooted in the base of things in the world and holds the key to knowing the world and its perceptions of order (the second approach). From two opposing ends in the perception of the role of art, the result is paradoxically, “one.” Art is held 41 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change over a long period of time, when his/her positive actions amount to a resistance whose purpose is to both physically and politically clean up the environment (Chatterton and Pickerill, 2010, p. 480). The activist of the 21st century, namely, the hypo-modern activist, has evolved and departed from the pragmatic activist of the postmodern era. He or she is not the consummate romantic figure of resistance, with forelock fluttering in the wind, brandishing a speech full of fervor and revolutionary jargon, as the typical modernist activist. The activism of today is often based on a process that is in contrast to the traditional processes of “being an activist” and on the rejection of the old mindset of the denunciation of the “other.”4 The militant activist of the 20th century was built largely on the definition of his/her “other”: capitalist, fascist, dictator and similar— together with a deeply entrenched rejection of this “other.” The contemporary activist, i.e., the hypo-modern one, being a direct successor of the postmodern activist, objects to the binary divisions of “otherness” and of values. Acceptance of a variety of values, a pragmatic orientation in achieving goals, professionalism—all these distinguish the activistic political being of the hypo-modernist (ibid., p. 480). The new movements are marked by a strong desire to reject simplistic divisions between the activist and his/her “other.” Although the “other” of the new activist is still owner of the means, capital, real estate, i.e., the exploiting capitalist and the like, as the movements become more local, the “other” who has now become the target of the activist’s labors, is often the non-militant and commonplace civilian. So, paradoxically, there is often a lack of trust between those who present themselves as professional producers of social change, who know what is right, who have the tools and skills to create resistance, and between the citizens themselves who are supposed to benefit from the change (Anonymous, 1999, pp. 160-166; Chatterton, 2006, pp. 259-282). 4 City-based social communes named after the old kibbutzim, that work and live within the urban communities. 48 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change Hypo-modern activists are engaged in resistance that is not at all romantic and in actions that cause him or her to “get dirty” while dealing with the daily squabbles they encounter. Hypo-modernists tend to reject ideals, shake off stagnant identities and abandon the transcendental search for the ideal good subject. Instead of all these, the involvement in political projects is defined via a complex and intricate multiplicity of identities that are always in a process of evolvement and movement on the basis of experience and negotiation (Castree, 2003, pp. 3-12; Gibson and Graham, 2006; Grosz, 1999; Whatmore, 1997, pp. 37-53). Contemporary activists are involved in new “self” practices, and their political identity grows from their daily actions, which are aimed at specific projects and campaigns. Marcuse’s book, The End of Utopia , consists of a collection of lectures and discussions that documents Marcuse’s conversations with German students in 1967. In this book, the image of the hypo-modern activist can be identified by his/her actions whose features we are familiar with today. In one discussion in the book, Marcuse responds to a participant who asks, “If the vital need for freedom and happiness is to be set up as a biological need, how is it to materialize?” The following excerpt is from Marcuse’s answer, which sounds to me like an incisive observation made by a revolutionary futurist with a view toward hypo-modern thought and action today: Marcuse: By “materially convertible” you mean: How does it go into effect in social production and finally even in the physiological structure itself? It operates through the construction of a pacified environment. I tried to indicate this in speaking of eliminating the terror of capitalist industrialization. What I mean is an environment that provides room for these new needs precisely through its new, pacified character, that is, that can enable them to be materially, even physiologically converted through a continuous change in human nature, namely through the reduction of characteristics that today manifest themselves in a horrible way: brutality, cruelty, false heroism, false virility, competition at any price. (Marcuse, 1970) 49 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change Hypo-modernism is first of all the creation of a peace-seeking environment, an environment that attempts to achieve genuine change in human nature. In the example I provide below from a number of campaigns that have been carried out in Israel, hypo-modern agents of change utilize art and play as key tools in creating both environmental and human change. Unfortunately due to limitation of words, the example is lacking and limited in scope. “Culture Movement” as social-artistic Movement for Utopian Aesthetic Play-Oriented Realization In the year 2004, six young art graduates from high schools around the country convened together and decided to apply their art to social purposes. After completing one year of community service in the fields of art and education, the six founded “Culture Movement”, which established groups of artists-educators who were chosen to work in the peripheral populated areas of Israel in what they call: “urban kibbutzim”5 The idea was simple: All those taking part in the project went to live in the towns and neighborhoods in the geo-political periphery of Israel and engaged in artisticeducational activities with children, youth and adults. The notion behind the project was to get these artists-educators to see these new places as their home, so they would become attached to these locations and at the same time commit to the cultural activities they launched there, activities that would be much more than just professional work whose goal was to earn a living. The movement’s site states that members of the Culture Movement “are committed to creation, education and culture and these are their main mission and activity at the location […]” “Culture Movement” appears to espouse in its vision the other utopian reality that Marcuse foresaw: “The unification of technique and art, work and play, of the ‘kingdom of necessity’ and the ‘kingdom 5https://tarbutmovement.org/ . 50 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change of freedom’ […] this means an ‘aesthetic’ reality—society as a work of art.” (Marcuse, 1971, p. 185) In what sense, then, is Culture Movement a hypo-modern movement? It seems that quite a few of the statements noted above and on the movement’s website are reminiscent of modernist manifestos of anachronistic idealistic modernist groups. However, several features of “Culture Movement” indicate a dramatic difference between the former and the modernist movements that attempted to change the world. “Culture Movement” indeed aspires to shape the image of Israeli society, and, in this aspect, it bears the modernist fingerprint, but at the same time the movement focuses on a small community through local activity in the region it wants to empower. “Culture Movement” is not interested in mounting a revolution that will smash to pieces the world as we know it. Its people believe in a methodical “doing,” on a small scale, a focused “doing” in which pathos and manifestos do not command a main objective, but rather where the purpose is the artistic venture—anonymous but intimate—which is pivotal to the community where they belong and where they share each day with its members. The art of “Culture Movement” is an ethical-practical means of changing the world, but this change resides in small-scale, everyday actions that are replicated via hard work. They adhere to Marcuse’s motto, “society as a work of art” (ibid., p. 185), while Schiller’s philosophical spirit walks between the lines of theory and praxis. The modernist manifesto movements, such as, the Dada Movement, Fluxus, Futurism, Expressionism, and more, were ultimately preoccupied with an audience that would follow them, and, most importantly, observe their work. Whereas, “Culture Movement” is devoted to a local community and not an audience; they are committed to 51 EJPAE: 01 2025 9 Eli Bruderman; Art and Play as Arenas for Resistance and Change “doing” and not “showing.” In this respect, they themselves declare: “To say farewell to the audience and connect with the community!”6 Another quality that makes “Culture Movement” a hypo-modern movement is its rhizomatic-network structure. It is a movement that spreads its socio-cultural agenda by means of a branching-off procedure, typical of a horizontal network. The rhizome has no starting point and no primary principle. It consists entirely of embranchments, mazes, unexpected encounters. The rhizome is defined by connectivity (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, pp. 7-15; Lechte, 2003, Volume I, pp. 186-188). The rhizomatic aspect of “Culture Movement” is manifested in the fact that it is spread out over 15 localities in the Israeli social and geographical periphery and numbers some 1500 members, and all this without a rigid leadership hierarchy. Part Five: Summary Can art and play assume a role in significant social change? This article indicates that this role is indeed practicable and, as such, one that fulfills itself in small social frameworks. The latter takes place in the context of communities in which forces of change use art and play for creating a better society and more or less consciously strive to create “society as a work of art.” It would appear that the prima facie natural space, the source site of the call for change—led by art and play—would seem the institutionalized art world. But, oddly enough, there is clear evidence that this same site is serving oppressive forces in society. 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