What these articles made me start thinking about is the role of the artist vs. the role of the audience and how they cannot exist without one or the other.
But when crossing the boundary between the roles of the two, exist the participant. In these articles, the artists are collectively creating an art piece based on the audience/ participation/ experience of the audience, "controlled situations" and/or "Environmental Constructions".

Kaprow argues that if the audience eliminated and just participants remained, it would create a more successful “Happening”. I’m not so sure I agreed with this. When one exists within an event and one exist merely as a bystander of the event, different perspectives, memories, and experiences are created. I do not see how this is a negative aspect. Also, he suggests that the works are inappropriate to exist within a gallery setting. I think this reflects back to an earlier discussion in class, last week, regarding the re-speaking videos we watched. How some suggested that the re-speaking “loose” something when presented into such a controlled space, environment, and crowd.

In respect to our Re-Speakings, not all audience members will be participants, but without the audience the participants are non-existent. For example, if the class is the only participants, and the audience is just there to watch the Happening. What is the importance of a spectacle of an event/happening? What is the importance of presenting the re-speaking to this crowd? How does this begin to create a collective memory of not only this event (the Conference) and the original event (the one re-spoken), and how do the two work within one another, the context of this social gathering, and audience??