Spectatorship is of increasing interest in theatre and performance studies, as these recent publications suggest, which both argue for the significant change of theatre, performance and the role of audiences in our digital consumer society. Any study of theatre implies, of course, the presence of an audience, but usually the spectators stay hidden, being assigned the role of silent observers. Dennis Kennedy takes the spectator, however, as main reference point in his varied study that diverges from ideologies of the historical avant-garde and intercultural theatre to sports events. He starts with three chapters on the problem of the spectator, acknowledging that spectators and audiences are ‘slippery concepts’ (p. 3), since they are heterogeneous, with individual experiences. Audiences get more and more dispersed in current society, which is both cause and effect of the spectacular, in which anything and everyone is turned into an agent and object of observation. Kennedy traces the spectacular back to the historical avant-garde and its paradoxical relationship with audiences: practitioners wanting to change, shock and reform spectators–consumers, the latter not willing to pay for being offended or re-educated.

He proceeds with four chapters in which Shakespeare is shown to fit a number of purposes: representing Cold War ideologies on both sides of the Iron Curtain, being a commodity object in heritage tourism, or serving different political and artistic agendas in intercultural theatre. In turn, Kennedy uses Shakespearean performances and adaptations to reflect on the different intimacies of looking in theatre and film. The last section then focuses on subjectivity, and provides some intriguing propositions regarding the merits of arousal in sports and games, being seen as a means for engagement as well as a form of audience expression. He finishes with some theoretical and personal dwellings in the fields of memory and belief. Within this range of subjects and methods, the overall approach seems to be a neo-materialistic one, in which Kennedy pays attention to actual audiences and audience behaviour. With De Certeau as his part-time companion, he focuses on the possibilities of the spectator's agency and resistance against consumerist or political ideology. It is a very refreshing way of putting theoretical ‘big talk’ into concrete perspective. Now and then, his essays slip into mere facts and figures, particularly in the essays on modernist and ideological practices. Here, the spectator remains a hypothetical addressee and once more stays hidden in the tail of the theatrical equation.

While Kennedy keeps one eye focused at the past, Modes of Spectating projects itself firmly into the present and future of digital culture. It is a patchwork of sixteen essays that discuss transformations in watching and engaging with (digital) performance art, acknowledging the ongoing entanglement of observation with participation and (technologically) enhanced sensory perception. The first section addresses the increased digital literacy and agency of young audiences with essays on digital art, animation and community art. Part two looks at networked performance, Second Life, VR and interactive movies. The section's title is ‘Imaginative Escape’ – it strikes me as old-fashioned to equate performance in virtual space with an ‘escape’. Some fine essays in this section itself know how to appreciate the actual transformational power of participatory audiences. The third section then traces questions of identity and subjectivity, addressing crossovers between theatre and therapy, sonic and tactile approaches to the city, haptic visuality, and the imagination of male identity. The last part interrogates sites of spectating, and particularly corporeal spaces turn out to be the most relevant site.

These concluding essays contain some excellent studies on the corporeality and phenomenology of visuality, which indirectly address Kennedy's quest for a resistance to the spectacular: there are alternatives to a Cartesian mode of spectating. The idea of various ‘modes of spectating’ promises an intriguing concept, yet the framing introduction merely defines these modes as theatre, games, headset, mobile phone and so on (p. 13). These art and media objects may generate particular ‘modes’, but these do not address the spectators’ activity directly. More precise ‘modes’ emerge from the essays themselves: visual/digital reading, interactivity, participation, sonic and tactile engagement, corporeal visuality, and playfulness. Such a categorization would actually transgress disciplinary boundaries. A second, emergent theme within the collection is the transformation of authorship and originality within a participatory culture. This ‘loss’ is sometimes met with concern, but more often with the approval of increased and shared creativity. Distributed aesthetics truly change spectatorship – ‘distributed’ may refer both to the participatory activity of actual audiences, and to shifts within the sensory apparatus of the corporeal spectator. They pave the way, and here is an interesting similarity with Kennedy's agenda, for spectating as renewed engagement with art and performance, and through this, with current culture and society.