”Kaikki tää valmistautuminen konserttiin, meneminen sinne saliin, se on sitä elävää elämää”

Suoratoistettu etäkonsertti suhteessa taiteen ja kulttuurin saavutettavuuteen

Abstract

This article deals with a live streamed concert as a means for cultural institutions to improve their accessibility. The idea of accessibility is considered here as an ideological notion that sets certain goals for art from a political point of view. As an example of this ideology of accessibility, the article examines a live streamed concert that was directed at customers in an elderly home in 2013 by the culture institution Tampere Hall in Finland. This concert was part of the project called Etäevent, which was funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture. In addition to accessibility, the article investigates the concert with the help of Philip Auslander’s concepts of mediatization and liveness. The research material consists of interviews that were conducted both with staff members of the Tampere Hall and with the concert’s audience members in the elderly home. The article argues that when a cultural event, such as a live streamed concert, is associated with the context and aims of healthcare, it is necessary to consider the new roles and responsibilities that this entails both for the involved cultural institution and its staff and for those within the healthcare institution. Another important conclusion of this article is that a person’s interest and willingness to participate in artistic and cultural events do not depend on their presumed social position, but on a complex range of factors. This makes it challenging to cater for audiences in the name of accessibility.