The new formats of the multimedia theatre

english

2020

volume 8, issue 2

Theatre of images   video mapping   video theatre

Slovenski gledališki inštitut (SLOGI)
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

In this article, the author aims to provide a brief overview of the relationship between theatre and media, starting from the period of the "Theatre of Images" to the present day, with a particular focus on video theatre in Italy during the 1980s, that is, the rise of the alleged "second wave" of the experimental theatre and its protagonists (Barberio Corsetti/ Studio Azzurro, Mario Martone). She explores the implementation of projected moving images in theatre from the film-theatre of Josef Svoboda to the recent experiments with video mapping and techno-immersion on stage. In the continuation, she examines the role of technology and communication via computers, in reference to their influence in society and their effects on social interactions. Through important political examples given by The Builders Association, she notes what is interesting in their works: the extraordinary capacity to dramatise some concepts that until now have been dealt with in essays on the sociology of media, that is, the New Public Space, the Panoptic, the New Connective Subjectivity, the Culture of "Real Virtuality". Key concepts, such as dislocation and deterritorialisation, presence and ubiquity, take, in fact, the shape of a powerful "mediaturgy". The ancient style scene, inhabited by backdrop videos projected on a mechanical stage with mobile platforms, is characteristic of the theatre of Robert Lepage, director, actor and filmmaker from Canada, to whom she dedicates a paragraph as the undisputed protagonist of the multimedia theatre. His concept of a flexible, mechanised performance space is similar to Gordon Craig's idea of using neutral, mobile, non-representational screens as a staging device.

28.04.2021