[ecrea] Impossible Theatres: call for statements

The Impossible Theatres project intends to gather together a range of
opinions on how best to contextualize, theorize and ultimately construct 
contemporary performance spaces. Below is an opening statement intended
to initiate this process and we invite you to respond to it. Responses
can be in the form of an open forum for comments, and a private channel
for longer and more considered responses. The intention is to collate
responses and to invite respondents to a working group meeting to be
held at the University of Greenwich on 5th and 6th June. Out of this
meeting it is intended to put together a network of participants with a
view to applying for external funding to take the project to the next
phase. It is also intended to publish a selection of the responses in an
edited volume.

We look forward to hearing from you... Please visit
http://blogs.gre.ac.uk/impossible/


The digitally inflected environment that we currently inhabit, with its
endless potential for generating new experiences of space and time,
raises serious questions and challenges in relation to the contemporary
place of theatre, and about theatre’s existence as a place in the
digital age. Does the ubiquity of digital communication networks and the
growth in site-specific performance mean that permanent theatre spaces
are becoming obsolescent, museums for an archaic form of spectacle? Or
is the intense immediacy generated in the derealized space of the black
box more relevant than ever? With this letter we aim to open a dialogue
with theatre and performance practitioners and theorists, as well as
those working with new media technologies, in order to imagine the
form(s) that the theatre of the future might take. We invite people to
share these imaginings with the aim of building creative networks in
order to bring some of these future theatres into realization.

Our inquiry stems from the observation that, in spite of frequent
creative uses of new media technologies made by many theatre and
performance practitioners, the architecture of theatre buildings has
remained largely unchanged for centuries. As such, it is timely to ask
what limitations this architecture places on performance-makers, and how
the space might be redesigned to open up new possibilities for digital
theatre, dance and music, as well as interactive or participatory
performance and installation works. This discussion aims both to develop
ideas for new kinds of spaces that artists, performers and audiences
would want to use, and also to conceive of new modes of audience
engagement in and through these architecturally and technologically
reconfigured spaces.

The need we are identifying in the contemporary context is not new.
There is a long history of desires to utilise existing technologies and
develop new ones within the performing arts. The idea of creating an
entirely different performance space, a new kind of theatre building
that could answer this need has a history, too. It is, however, a
history of imagined, visionary, yet never-materialised architectural
projects. These include: Giulio Camillo’s “Theatre of Memory”; Frederick
Kiesler’s “Endless Theatre”; Bauhaus pioneer Walter Gropius’ “Synthetic
Total Theatre”; and Josef Svoboda’s “Multimedia Theatre”; to name just a
few. Many of these planned projects later proved influential in both
theatre architecture, and performing practice and aesthetics—Gropius’s
plans for his Synthetic Total Theatre, for example, were hugely
influential among the theatre architects in the 1970s. However, whatever
influence they had on their relative “theatres of the future”, we can
speculate that if they had materialised in their original context they
would have answered contemporary artists’ needs, whilst also encouraging
further experimentation and invention. And so our incitement to imagine
the new theatrical possibilities that are opened-up by contemporary
technology is coupled with the aim of forging connections with
architects and technology developers so that the visions for a new
performance spaces that we generate are not consigned to the history of
“impossible theatres”.

The emergence of technologically mediated performance practices and new
forms of audience raise fundamental questions about what we understand
theatre to be. The definition of “theatre” includes not only a structure
for performances or dramatic literature—the word has also been used to
denote a place of enactment of significant events, ranging from the
sphere of public life to a zone of military operation. This suggests
that there is a confusion contained within the concept of theatre,
between the spectacle, understood in representational terms, and the
enactment of “real” life. And when we consider how the Platonic critique
of theatre sought to condemn simulation—by means of its own
dramatization of Socrates’ dialogues—it would seem that this confusion
has been contained within theatre’s philosophical concept from its
inception. The emergent forms of mediation that are being incorporated
into contemporary performance practices bring this problematic to the
surface as they facilitate new forms of engagement that have the
potential to complicate the active/passive dichotomy staged in Plato’s cave.

Furthermore, although the etymology of “theatre” implies a privileging
of the visual sense, emerging technologies might allow us to call into
question in new ways the ocularcentrism of theatrical discourse, and
conceive of novel forms of integration between the visual, the sonic,
the haptic and the aromatic etc.

If our visions of future theatres are to move beyond a simple
fetishization of technology to constitute genuine artistic progress,
they must be grounded in sound critical thinking about theatre. For this
reason we welcome the input of theorists of theatre and performance, as
well as practitioners, into the discussion. Our ultimate aim is use the
responses to form a working group that will prepare and submit a
significant funding bid to support a proposed European Electronic
Theatre Network (EETN). It is also intended to gather together selected
responses for publication as an edited volume.

Some questions:

- How have developments in digital technology impacted upon performance
space? How might emergent technologies influence the future design of
performance spaces?
- Who should be involved in any design process? What interdisciplinary
connections will our future theatres generate?
- How far can a performance be telematically mediated and still be
“theatre”? Do new hybrid performance practices alter the ontology of
theatre?
- To what extent does the history of theatre allow us to negotiate
digital performance practices? What critical paradigms beyond
performance theory can help us to theorize the contemporary scene?
- Can our future theatre designs act as models for conceptualizing the
multiple and discontinuous spatialities and temporalities of the digital
environment?
- How does the multi-layered spatiality of the digital stage affect our
understanding of presence?
- What forms of subjectivity are required or produced in the digital
theatre environment? Do future theatres have a role in constituting new
communities in our highly mediated world?

Any enquiries regarding the working group for the research network, and
longer responses to be considered for inclusion in the edited volume can
be emailed to (H.E.Lammin /at/ gre.ac.uk) <mailto:(H.E.Lammin /at/ gre.ac.uk)>. We
will not publish these responses without authors’ consent.

Best regards,
Hannah Lammin, Stephen Kennedy, Fahrudin (Nuno) Salihbegovic



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