Scenography as architectural experimentation (original) (raw)

2017, International Federation for Theater Research Conference (IFTR 2017)

Abstract

Architecture and scenography have been sharing, historically, researches on the concept of space, time dimensions, illusion and reality. Whenever science and technology propose new dimensions, it is Art that tries to experiment them first and remind us that space and time are constructions that can be re-read and disassembled. In this first section, we investigated Diller+Scofidio sceneries for Moving Target (1996) and EJM 1 and 2 (1998) Frédéric Flamand´s choreographies; and Herzog&DeMeuron sceneries for Tristan und Isolde (Berlin Opera House, 2006) and Attila (Metropolitan Opera House, 2010). Crossing theorist's thoughts on art, theater and architecture, as Hal Foster, Rafael Moneo and RoseLee Goldberg, the investigation seeks to baste the scenography and architecture projects in the same research field claimed by each of the architects. In the work of Diller+Scofidio, stands out the thought about real and mediated images and the new dimensions of space. For Herzog&DeMeuron, the screen and the texture materials power up the light design, starting questions about volume and planarity, as well as theatricality and reality. The works studied reflect in these artistic fields the contemporary notions of space-and-time, hybridity and virtual processing. They show how the nature of the spectacle has taken architecture, launching it into a research on illusion, space-time and movement or, for Tschumi, the replacement of "utilitas" or "function" by the "event".

Figures (5)

Figure 1: The American Mysteries. The Creation Production Company, 1984. The Memory Theatre of Giulio Camillo is based on a fiction about the Renaissance philosopher who created a theatre where a single spectator, before contemplating allegories of techniques, arts and myths, could establish bridges between them, assimilating "all the knowledge of the world". In this site-specific performance, director and playwright Matthew Maguire creates a play within the play within the play, in which a troupe of Commedia dell'Arte plays in Camillo's theatre next to himself (MAGUIRE, 1986). The audience follow the three layers of the performance by walking through three chambers of the Brooklyn Bridge

Figure 1: The American Mysteries. The Creation Production Company, 1984. The Memory Theatre of Giulio Camillo is based on a fiction about the Renaissance philosopher who created a theatre where a single spectator, before contemplating allegories of techniques, arts and myths, could establish bridges between them, assimilating "all the knowledge of the world". In this site-specific performance, director and playwright Matthew Maguire creates a play within the play within the play, in which a troupe of Commedia dell'Arte plays in Camillo's theatre next to himself (MAGUIRE, 1986). The audience follow the three layers of the performance by walking through three chambers of the Brooklyn Bridge

Figure 3: Slow House project. Diller+Scofidio, 1991 “(...) the framing is displaced, so that what you see on the monitor could never be associated with its actual position in space. Vanishing point and point of view of the observer are misaligned, as in scenographic works and parallax. The horizon is misaligned, multiple and causes the observer to lose its position reference in space." (VIANA, 2013, p. 18, my translation).

Figure 3: Slow House project. Diller+Scofidio, 1991 “(...) the framing is displaced, so that what you see on the monitor could never be associated with its actual position in space. Vanishing point and point of view of the observer are misaligned, as in scenographic works and parallax. The horizon is misaligned, multiple and causes the observer to lose its position reference in space." (VIANA, 2013, p. 18, my translation).

Figure 5: Tristan und Isolde. Dir.Stefan Bachmann. 2006 ”The stage sets and the staging would not represent the things themselves but rather their appearances. (...) that were constantly changing, breathing, imperceptibly overlapping, fading in and fading out. With the addition of precision lighting, these appearances acquired an almost hallucinatory effect”.

Figure 5: Tristan und Isolde. Dir.Stefan Bachmann. 2006 ”The stage sets and the staging would not represent the things themselves but rather their appearances. (...) that were constantly changing, breathing, imperceptibly overlapping, fading in and fading out. With the addition of precision lighting, these appearances acquired an almost hallucinatory effect”.

For Attila’s scenography, at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, led by Pierre Audi in 2010, the architects designed two devices that work in contrast. In the prologue, the mountains are represented by concrete rubbles, with smaller pieces below and large slabs above (Fig. 7). In other acts, the forest around Rome is a "cloth" of leaves that covers the whole scene, from floor to ceiling, in a dense texture with holes for the characters’ apparitions (Fig. 8). Here, the duo abolishes "form" so that the focus falls on the qualities of materials that, in contrast, follow the main theme of destruction and rebirth. The textile quality emanating from the texture of the material is intended to accompany the texture of the music and, as they say, reinforce its perception. By giving up decisive forms, the duo submit the visual space to the sound space.

For Attila’s scenography, at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, led by Pierre Audi in 2010, the architects designed two devices that work in contrast. In the prologue, the mountains are represented by concrete rubbles, with smaller pieces below and large slabs above (Fig. 7). In other acts, the forest around Rome is a "cloth" of leaves that covers the whole scene, from floor to ceiling, in a dense texture with holes for the characters’ apparitions (Fig. 8). Here, the duo abolishes "form" so that the focus falls on the qualities of materials that, in contrast, follow the main theme of destruction and rebirth. The textile quality emanating from the texture of the material is intended to accompany the texture of the music and, as they say, reinforce its perception. By giving up decisive forms, the duo submit the visual space to the sound space.

Figure 10: Ricola pavilion, Herzog & De Meuron, 1993. Figura 8: Attila’s scenography, dir. Pierre Audi, 2010. Scoffier takes up the "tattoo" condemned by Adolf Loos in "Ornament and Crime" to analyse the screen-fagade so used in contemporary architecture. Counter to the "athletic and functional body" to which the modernists compared their architecture, the contemporary architectural object is "a glorious unity enclosed in its mystery and governed by the Law of Desire." The silk-screened glass created by Herzog & De Meuron does not let itself to be imprisoned. It is almost impossible to comprehend the matter of their mutant surfaces. The material deceives the eyes and plays with our perception, which travels between surface and depth, between the leaf design and the transparency of the glass. “They apply its idioms cannily: often they use serial units in such a way that material

Figure 10: Ricola pavilion, Herzog & De Meuron, 1993. Figura 8: Attila’s scenography, dir. Pierre Audi, 2010. Scoffier takes up the "tattoo" condemned by Adolf Loos in "Ornament and Crime" to analyse the screen-fagade so used in contemporary architecture. Counter to the "athletic and functional body" to which the modernists compared their architecture, the contemporary architectural object is "a glorious unity enclosed in its mystery and governed by the Law of Desire." The silk-screened glass created by Herzog & De Meuron does not let itself to be imprisoned. It is almost impossible to comprehend the matter of their mutant surfaces. The material deceives the eyes and plays with our perception, which travels between surface and depth, between the leaf design and the transparency of the glass. “They apply its idioms cannily: often they use serial units in such a way that material

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