Networked audience participation: the futurity of post-Brexit democracy in One Day, Maybe and Operation Black Antler

ABSTRACT Where are we in the story of British democracy? Was the 2016 EU Referendum a rehearsal for a new political system of direct democracy that ultimately benefits the far right? Or will the Internet replace the conventional machinery of government with a radical new form of network power where people discursively experiment with new political realities through aesthetic modes of social relations? This article proffers the term ‘networked participation’ to describe a conceptual model of citizenry centred on structuring meaning through the dialogic exchange of information in aesthetic environments. The political ideals of network politics inform my analysis of the complex web of connections that participants scaffold in the performances Operation Black Antler(Blast Theory and Hydrocracker 2017) and One Day, Maybe (dreamthinkspeak 2017) between identitarian ideology in Britain and competing narratives of democracy’s meaning in South Korea, respectively. This model of audience participation is proffered to develop a theory of social relations produced through a theatrical experience of digital interconnectivity.