The Festival as Form

节日是英国创意经济的重要组成部分。超过三分之一的英国成年人参观过一个（数据来源：Ticketmaster），除了350个指定的文学节，许多大型的一般文学节现在都包括诗歌、戏剧和讨论的文学区。节日也改变了人们获取新作品的方式：市场分析机构尼尔森图书扫描（nielsen Bookscan）认为，2012年至2017年间，诗歌销量增长了66%，这在很大程度上是由节日和现场活动中对当代诗歌的兴趣推动的（Bookseller, 13.4.18）。然而，尽管有大量关于节日的人类学背景，但对当代节日如何塑造其中的表演的研究却很少（Comunian, 2016），而且几乎没有关于节日与现代文学之间关系的研究。关于音乐节的争论往往集中在音乐节的反文化特征在多大程度上被市场所接受；约翰森（2012）称，文学节也遭遇了“身份危机”，既要成为明星作家的展示平台，又要让读者觉得自己更像是真正参与讨论的人。但贾明加尔-琼斯（jamingal - jones, 2014）指出，仅追踪身份问题的研究降低了整个节日流程中参与者体验的身临其境的丰富性、偶然性和复杂性；它不能记录节日的超丰富、超越边界的经验（Turner 1974），它绕过了艺术本身在阐明地位和包容问题方面所起的作用。本文的建议是对当代文学艺术节作为一种形式进行考察。就像舞台或版面一样，这个节日是一种文化流派、一个经济项目和一个物理空间的混合体，它以独特的方式塑造了其中的艺术和观众。通过观察被选中的艺术家为艺术节改编作品的方式，我们旨在更多地了解艺术节为艺术家产生的作品中的创作压力和反馈循环。我们将让观众对他们的经历进行一些“叙事摄影”，询问他们如何在电影节期间作为消费者、朋友、公民、粉丝、身份寻求者和电影节的共同创造者，为他们自己的社交媒体渠道适应电影节。通过采访策展人和广泛的利益相关者，我们将建立一个关于节日作为一种类型如何塑造文学创造力的画面，我们将把它放在现代文学的更长的历史中。我们的研究问题是：当代节日作为一种体裁是如何塑造其中的文学表演的？参加文学节的人如何根据他们对文学节的全方位体验来理解文学事件？自20世纪初以来，节日是如何支持文学作品的创作和参与的？我们将为学术评论家、艺术专业人士和创意总监制作一份报告，概述节日化对文学的影响。当然，我们也会邀请观众在接下来的几年里，通过这些电影节上的活动，对我们的研究做出自己的回应。

Festivals are a vital part of the UK's creative economy. Over a third of UK adults have visited one (source: Ticketmaster), and alongside the 350 designated literary festivals, many of the large general ones now include literary zones for poetry, theatre and discussion. Festivals are also changing how people access new work: market analysts Neilsen Bookscan argue that the 66% rise in poetry sales between 2012-2017 has been substantially driven by the appetite for contemporary poetry encountered at festivals and live events (Bookseller, 13.4.18). Yet despite the large amount of anthropological background on festivals, there has been little research into the way contemporary festivals shape the performances within them (Comunian, 2016), and almost nothing on the relationship between festivals and modern literature. Debates on music festivals often turn on the degree to which festivals' countercultural credentials have been appropriated by the market; the literary festival, too, suffers 'a crisis of identity', claims Johansen (2012), torn between being the vehicle for star authors, and a means for readers to feel more like genuine participants in a discussion. But research which tracks questions of status alone has reduced the immersive richness, contingency and complexity of the participants' experience within the overall festival flow, notes Jamaingal-Jones (2014); it cannot register the hyper-abundant, border-dropping experience of festivals (Turner 1974), and it by-passes the role the arts themselves play in articulating questions of status and inclusion.This proposal is to examine the contemporary literary-artistic festival as a form. Like a stage or a page layout, the festival is a mixture of a cultural genre, an economic project and a physical space, which frames the arts within it and its audience in distinctive ways. By observing the way selected artists adapt a work for the festival, we aim to understand more of the creative pressures and feedback loops into the work which the festival generates for artists. We will get audiences to do some 'narrated photography' of their experience, asking how they adapt during the festival as consumers, friends, citizens, fans, identity-seekers and co-creators of the festival for their own social media outlets. Interviewing curators and a wide range of stakeholders, we will build up a picture of how the festival as a genre shapes literary creativity, and we will set this within a longer history of its role in modern literature. Our research questions are:How does the contemporary festival as a genre shape the literary performances within it?How do festival-goers understand literary events in the light of their all-round experience of the festival?How have festivals supported the creation of and engagement with works of literature since the early twentieth century?We will produce a report outlining what festivalization is doing to literature for academic critics, arts professionals and creative directors. And naturally enough, we will invite audiences to make their own response to the research through events at those festivals in subsequent years.