This article investigates the role of scenographics in staging climate crisis cultures. The art c... more This article investigates the role of scenographics in staging climate crisis cultures. The art collective SUPERFLEX's installation It Is Not The End Of The World (Copenhagen 2019) explored human-world relations through techniques of set design, lighting, sound and costume. Central to this was a detailed 1-to-1 scale replica of the UN Building toilets re-imagined as an archaeology of a future without humans. While described as an 'installation', It Is Not.. . is adopted as a case study that exemplifies the role of scenographics in irritating a sense of place and is argued as affording insight into the assemblages of place, world and atmosphere. Drawing upon Global South philosopher Arturo Escobar's 'pluriversal design', I offer an argument for scenographics as a methodology when investigating world feelings in an era of climate crisis. 'Pluriversal scenographics' is proposed as a critical framework for the staging of nondualistic, relational and more-than-human 'possible reals'. Pluriversal concepts are proposed as a model for renewing the political purpose of scenographic practice as a methodology for investigating world feelings. I conclude with a call for a renewed political task of scenography and the value of this perspective for theatre makers, arts professionals and cultural geographers.
This chapter investigates the artist Sin Wai Kin’s (單 慧 乾) speculative drag through the prism of ... more This chapter investigates the artist Sin Wai Kin’s (單 慧 乾) speculative drag through the prism of ‘gender-assemblage’. Combining third wave feminist ideas on gender with new materialist readings of assemblage, the concept of gender-assemblage is proposed as a critical framework to identify, critique and negotiate the more-than-human processes of gendering. Sin’s drag draws upon their non-binary identity to speculate renewed discourses, actions and expectations for gendered practices. The scenographics of Sin’s drag, with reference to the overt use of breast forms and make up, are proposed as irritating the normative gender-assemblages that define the representational identity categories of ‘female’ and ‘male’. In approaching gender as assemblage, Sin’s drag is argued as revealing the assemblages of assemblages that underlines the potential of scenographics to study gender-assemblages more broadly.
Taking the UK Grime artist Stormzy’s performance at Glastonbury 2019 as a case study, this articl... more Taking the UK Grime artist Stormzy’s performance at Glastonbury 2019 as a case study, this article investigates the tactics, technologies and processes revealed through the act of staging atmospheres. Process-based philosophies of experience, such as pluriversal design and worlding, are adopted to examine the ontologically ‘nonbinary’ perspectives that an atmosphere-led stage aesthetics invite. Methodologically, Stormzy’s headlining act produced by TAWBOX and collaborators is analyzed through the geographer Derek McCormack’s approach to speculative devices (such as balloons or stage sets) as ‘doing atmospheric things’. This includes an analysis of stage atmospheres as indeterminate ‘worlding envelopes’ and the role of atmospherics in enacting, projecting, or affirming possible worlds for Black British culture. McCormack’s proposal of atmospheric envelopment is extended into the study of theatre and performance by positioning ‘scenographics’ as a type of atmospherics. Put simply, this article offers an initial argument for considering the tactical affects of scenographics within the production of atmospherics. The article concludes with a challenge to category-based (binary) stage ontologies and argues the benefits of atmospherics as a process-based (nonbinary) approach to stage aesthetics.
This article announces the creation of a new section in STP dedicated to the dissemination of Pra... more This article announces the creation of a new section in STP dedicated to the dissemination of Practice-as-Research (PaR) projects. The authors argue the need for a sustainable archive for PaR outcomes, which embraces a range of media formats and curatorial strategies.
This article is an outcome of my investigations into the use of computer-based 3D visualization a... more This article is an outcome of my investigations into the use of computer-based 3D visualization as a research methodology. Frederick Kiesler's unrealized Endless Theatre (1916-26) project is employed as a case study for articulating 'paradata' in heritage visualization. This builds upon the principles of knowledge transparency outlined within the London Charter (2008). My overall objective for this article is to argue paradata as a critical framework for reading and designing heritage visualization. This is particularly focused on the procedural insights from a modeller's perspective and practical techniques for 'thick depiction', including a proposal for 'paradata maps'. To evidence these positions, the article details two contextual findings on the Endless Theatre projectconcerning the principles of 'continuous movement' and 'audience seating'that emerged through the visualization process itself. The article concludes with an appraisal of paradata as a critical framework and computer-based 3D visualization as a historiographic method that, it argues, has offered new insights into Kiesler's unrealized theatre project.
My starting point for this essay is a simple premise: that paintings orient feelings of world. Th... more My starting point for this essay is a simple premise: that paintings orient feelings of world. This follows the idea that paintings afford access to the feel of other places. Paintings connect different senses of world together. Paintings orient physically as well as emotionally. Accordingly, I ask can these place-orienting traits of paintings be understood as in some way “scenographic”? Silke Otto-Knapp’s paintings regularly take the stage environment as their subject. Notably, her 2017 exhibition at Midway Contemporary Art (Minneapolis) was titled “Bühnenbilder”, which is often translated as “stage designer.” Yet I suggest that Otto-Knapp’s paintings also evoke a quality of scenography, by which I mean the multiple methods used to evoke atmospheres of place in theatrical performances, such as set, light, sound, or costume. Silke Otto-Knapp’s paintings could be seen to represent stage environments. But at the same time, one could argue that, as with the stage environments they evoke, her paintings enact a feeling of place that others, complicates, and reveals normative orders of place. This is my starting point for proposing “painting scenographics.”
Scenography and Art History: Performance Design and Visual Culture, 2021
I always feel that scenography works best at a border. If you arrive to this book as an art histo... more I always feel that scenography works best at a border. If you arrive to this book as an art historian, border thinking is one key for unlocking its potential for art history. Indeed, I encourage you to think of scenography as the crafting of borders. Whether in terms of disciplines or materialities, scenography weaves border feelings by highlighting the intersection of distinct stagecrafts, media, and ontological spillages between the politically contrived and ‘the real’. In doing so, it leans on a cross-disciplinary range of subjects, techniques and processes that exceed the institutional contexts of theatre. Historically, scenographic practice has been conceptualized as a lesser form of architecture, akin to a potemkin village or painted backdrop, that serves only to communicate a preexisting message. Contemporary approaches to scenography embrace a more holistic account of how the combination of materiality, light, scent, or even temperature evoke feelings of place. The interface of scenography and art history provides an apt context from which to re-map and re-think the underlying borders and anti-theatrical biases that frame scenographic cultures. Whether the critical possibilities of a stage set or the multi-sensory experiences of gardens, I encourage you to consider how scenographic techniques are present in a range of staged material cultures that intervene, irritate or complicated normative flows of space and place.
It's 2019 as I write this opening statement. In the UK, we have just experienced the hottest Febr... more It's 2019 as I write this opening statement. In the UK, we have just experienced the hottest February on record with temperatures as high as 20.6C1. This is one year on from what the UK media termed 'The Beast from the East', which saw average temperatures fall to-11C2 in the same calendar month. At the same time, the east coast of the United States has just experienced a cold snap with warnings not to leave your home unless obsoletely necessary. Climate scientists have warned that, based on an analysis of trends over 50 years, the increasing regularity of extreme weather conditions across the planet will become the norm3. While this has a direct impact on our living patterns and infrastructure, it also impacts the seasonal cycles of insects, plants and migratory birds that human food chains are reliant upon. Social and climate justice movements will need to act in unison if resources become increasingly regulated, horded and re-allocated. The need to prepare humanity for, what the anthropologist Arturo Escobar (2018) calls, 'civilization change' would have to occur as much through cultural and social interventions as via political reorganisation. Crucial to this shift will be challenging how 'the world' is imagined, deliberated, and practiced within social and political discourses.
This article document the lecture 'Scenographic Futures', presented as part of the session PQ TAL... more This article document the lecture 'Scenographic Futures', presented as part of the session PQ TALKS, at PQ 2019, a position statements called 'Changing the Question' is presented to reflect if rather than asking what is scenography, now the question is what does scenography do? How scenography affects, channels, and orientate experiences of stage, place, and world.
Este artigo documenta a palestra 'Scenographic Futures', apresentada como parte da sessão PQ TALKS, na PQ 2019, uma declaração de posição chamada 'Changing the Question' é apresentada para refletir se, em vez de perguntar o que é cenografia, agora a pergunta é o que a cenografia faz? Como a cenografia afeta, canaliza e orienta experiências de palco, lugar e mundo.
In this article, I present an argument for a proposed focus of ‘critical costume’. Critical Costu... more In this article, I present an argument for a proposed focus of ‘critical costume’. Critical Costume, as a research platform, was founded in 2013 to promote new debate and scholarship on the status of costume in contemporary art and culture. We have now hosted two biennial conferences and exhibitions (Edge Hill University 2013, Aalto University 2015). These events have exposed an international appetite for a renewed look at how costume is studied, practised and theorized. Significantly, Critical Costume is focused on an inclusive remit that is interdisciplinary and supports a range of ‘voices’: from theatre and anthropology scholars to working artists. In that regard, I offer an initial argument for how we might collectively navigate this interdisciplinary field of practice with reference to other self-identified critical approaches to art and design. By focusing on an interdisciplinary perspective on costume, my intention is to invite new readings and connections between popular practices, such as Halloween and cosplay, with the refined crafts of theatrical and film professionals. I argue that costume is a vital element of performance practice – as well as an extra-daily component of our social lives – that affords distinct methods for critiquing how appearance is sustained, disciplined and regulated. I conclude by offering a position on the provocation of critical costume and a word of caution on the argument for disciplinarity.
Abstract: Our guest editorial takes the form of an interview between the JAWS editorial team and ... more Abstract: Our guest editorial takes the form of an interview between the JAWS editorial team and Dr Rachel Hann. JAWS: A lot of different disciplines are involved with Practice as Research (PaR) under different names, such as artistic research, arts-based research, practice research, etc. Is there a need to bridge the gap between these modes of practice and areas of discourse? Rachel Hann (RH): My embracing of 'practice research' (see Hann 2015) seeks to bring the established positions on conducting research through practice together under one heading. Indeed, I had become tired of the circular arguments that would occur about the differences between practice as/ through/based/led research. While these were useful at a granular level, they often side-stepped the larger issues of how practice-researchers across disciplinary areas operate within universities and research ecologies. 'Practice research' is loose enough that it does not privilege any of these sub-debates, while also being new enough that it invites a focus on the future. Yet, I remain distinctly aware that some of these approaches represent distinct positions on the question of 'who' researches as much as 'what' is
Keywords: practice research, social good vs. academic good, accessibility, curated portfolio, peer review, legibility
This article announces the creation of a new section in STP dedicated to the dissemination of Pra... more This article announces the creation of a new section in STP dedicated to the dissemination of Practice-as-Research (PaR) projects. The authors argue the need for a sustainable archive for PaR outcomes, which embraces a range of media formats and curatorial strategies.
Costume is critical. It is critical to making performance, critical to spectator- ship, criticall... more Costume is critical. It is critical to making performance, critical to spectator- ship, critically overlooked within scholarship, notable when in crisis, and a means of critically interrogating the body. It is therefore critical that we discuss costume. Yet, it is equally imperative for costume to find appropriate methods and frameworks to support new forms of practice. A critical discourse of costume aims to promote new questions and scholarship on the intersections between body, design and performance. This is the concern of critical costume.
Abstract: To interrogate the role of architecture within intermedial digital opera, this article ... more Abstract: To interrogate the role of architecture within intermedial digital opera, this article returns to a model of performance architecture as conceived by Swiss scenographer Adolphe Appia (1842-1928) and German architect Heinrich Tessenow (1876-1950) for the Festspielhaus Hellerau (1911).
Architects Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio have questioned conventional approaches to spati... more Architects Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio have questioned conventional approaches to spatial temporality and the situation of architecture since the late 1970s. Now joined by Charles Renfro, the installation and architectural projects of their interdisciplinary design studio Diller Scofidio+ Renfro are representative of the shift from the aesthetic architectures of post-modernism towards a critical architecture based upon the principles of time-based art.
Accompanying the Prague Quadrennial's profound shift from previously describing itself as an ‘Int... more Accompanying the Prague Quadrennial's profound shift from previously describing itself as an ‘International Exhibition of Scenography and Architecture’ to the punchier and more ambitious ‘Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space’, the 2011 edition witnessed the inclusion of an Open Spatial Lab as an addition to its Architecture Section. This was a ten-day workshop comprised of twenty-one invited practitioners and scholars from around the globe to discuss both the present and the future of theatre and performance architecture.
ERA21 [Czech Journal of Architecture] Special Issue on Sceno-Architecture, 2011
The Festspielhaus Hellerau (1911) is recognized as the first purpose-built “studio“ performance s... more The Festspielhaus Hellerau (1911) is recognized as the first purpose-built “studio“ performance space. Scenographer Adolphe Appia and architect Heinrich Tessenow’s architectural legacy is once again an active site of experimentation following a 2006 renovation. Moreover, the current artistic residency of William Forsythe’s dance company has continued Appia’s vision for a future performance practice through an intermedial approach. Importantly, the body, within the work of Forsythe and Appia, remains a locus of artistic convergence as it encompasses the “open“ architecture at Hellerau.
In the 1920s and 1930s several proposals for a new form of theatrical architecture were conceived... more In the 1920s and 1930s several proposals for a new form of theatrical architecture were conceived. Though unrealized, these Utopian designs engendered an idealized ambition for dramatic reform and have come to represent significant developments within Modernist theatre architecture. These include the visions of Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874–1940), Walter Gropius (1883–1969), and Frederick Kiesler (1890–1965). Nevertheless, their incomplete status dictates that the dramaturgical potential of these idealized ventures remains elusive in the absence of a ‘complete’ artefact.
This thesis is an investigation of these Utopian theatres through the practice of computer-based 3D visualization. Approached as a research methodology, the structural and dramaturgical implications of these lost theatres are examined through the process of – albeit virtual – ‘realization’. However, the use of this technology to articulate and conduct cultural heritage research has been deemed a problematic enterprise within the academy. Since its inception in the late 1980s, heritage visualization has been consistently berated for its susceptibility to subjective coefficients and the apparent absence of a scholarly narrative.
In response to this methodological concern, this project’s research strategy is drawn from the recommendations of the London Charter 20091. First drafted in 2006, the London Charter is an initiative designed to enhance the academic validity and accessibility of visualization-based research and practice under the wider remit of cultural heritage. Concerned with intellectual transparency and accessibility, it outlines the requirements for academic scrutiny and acceptance. Notably this extends to an acknowledgement of ‘all information, digital and non-digital, considered during, or directly influencing, the creation of computer-based visualization outcomes’ [The London Charter 2009: 7].
Consequently, the aim of this thesis is to examine the implications of intellectual transparency for heritage visualization. The written component confronts this aim through an examination of computer-based 3D visualization as a research methodology: this includes possible strategies for knowledge representation and citation methods. Observations from this review support a wider consideration of, what are termed here, ‘procedural coefficients’ and their role in piecing together possible ‘pasts’ in support of a cohesive visualization.
This article investigates the role of scenographics in staging climate crisis cultures. The art c... more This article investigates the role of scenographics in staging climate crisis cultures. The art collective SUPERFLEX's installation It Is Not The End Of The World (Copenhagen 2019) explored human-world relations through techniques of set design, lighting, sound and costume. Central to this was a detailed 1-to-1 scale replica of the UN Building toilets re-imagined as an archaeology of a future without humans. While described as an 'installation', It Is Not.. . is adopted as a case study that exemplifies the role of scenographics in irritating a sense of place and is argued as affording insight into the assemblages of place, world and atmosphere. Drawing upon Global South philosopher Arturo Escobar's 'pluriversal design', I offer an argument for scenographics as a methodology when investigating world feelings in an era of climate crisis. 'Pluriversal scenographics' is proposed as a critical framework for the staging of nondualistic, relational and more-than-human 'possible reals'. Pluriversal concepts are proposed as a model for renewing the political purpose of scenographic practice as a methodology for investigating world feelings. I conclude with a call for a renewed political task of scenography and the value of this perspective for theatre makers, arts professionals and cultural geographers.
This chapter investigates the artist Sin Wai Kin’s (單 慧 乾) speculative drag through the prism of ... more This chapter investigates the artist Sin Wai Kin’s (單 慧 乾) speculative drag through the prism of ‘gender-assemblage’. Combining third wave feminist ideas on gender with new materialist readings of assemblage, the concept of gender-assemblage is proposed as a critical framework to identify, critique and negotiate the more-than-human processes of gendering. Sin’s drag draws upon their non-binary identity to speculate renewed discourses, actions and expectations for gendered practices. The scenographics of Sin’s drag, with reference to the overt use of breast forms and make up, are proposed as irritating the normative gender-assemblages that define the representational identity categories of ‘female’ and ‘male’. In approaching gender as assemblage, Sin’s drag is argued as revealing the assemblages of assemblages that underlines the potential of scenographics to study gender-assemblages more broadly.
Taking the UK Grime artist Stormzy’s performance at Glastonbury 2019 as a case study, this articl... more Taking the UK Grime artist Stormzy’s performance at Glastonbury 2019 as a case study, this article investigates the tactics, technologies and processes revealed through the act of staging atmospheres. Process-based philosophies of experience, such as pluriversal design and worlding, are adopted to examine the ontologically ‘nonbinary’ perspectives that an atmosphere-led stage aesthetics invite. Methodologically, Stormzy’s headlining act produced by TAWBOX and collaborators is analyzed through the geographer Derek McCormack’s approach to speculative devices (such as balloons or stage sets) as ‘doing atmospheric things’. This includes an analysis of stage atmospheres as indeterminate ‘worlding envelopes’ and the role of atmospherics in enacting, projecting, or affirming possible worlds for Black British culture. McCormack’s proposal of atmospheric envelopment is extended into the study of theatre and performance by positioning ‘scenographics’ as a type of atmospherics. Put simply, this article offers an initial argument for considering the tactical affects of scenographics within the production of atmospherics. The article concludes with a challenge to category-based (binary) stage ontologies and argues the benefits of atmospherics as a process-based (nonbinary) approach to stage aesthetics.
This article announces the creation of a new section in STP dedicated to the dissemination of Pra... more This article announces the creation of a new section in STP dedicated to the dissemination of Practice-as-Research (PaR) projects. The authors argue the need for a sustainable archive for PaR outcomes, which embraces a range of media formats and curatorial strategies.
This article is an outcome of my investigations into the use of computer-based 3D visualization a... more This article is an outcome of my investigations into the use of computer-based 3D visualization as a research methodology. Frederick Kiesler's unrealized Endless Theatre (1916-26) project is employed as a case study for articulating 'paradata' in heritage visualization. This builds upon the principles of knowledge transparency outlined within the London Charter (2008). My overall objective for this article is to argue paradata as a critical framework for reading and designing heritage visualization. This is particularly focused on the procedural insights from a modeller's perspective and practical techniques for 'thick depiction', including a proposal for 'paradata maps'. To evidence these positions, the article details two contextual findings on the Endless Theatre projectconcerning the principles of 'continuous movement' and 'audience seating'that emerged through the visualization process itself. The article concludes with an appraisal of paradata as a critical framework and computer-based 3D visualization as a historiographic method that, it argues, has offered new insights into Kiesler's unrealized theatre project.
My starting point for this essay is a simple premise: that paintings orient feelings of world. Th... more My starting point for this essay is a simple premise: that paintings orient feelings of world. This follows the idea that paintings afford access to the feel of other places. Paintings connect different senses of world together. Paintings orient physically as well as emotionally. Accordingly, I ask can these place-orienting traits of paintings be understood as in some way “scenographic”? Silke Otto-Knapp’s paintings regularly take the stage environment as their subject. Notably, her 2017 exhibition at Midway Contemporary Art (Minneapolis) was titled “Bühnenbilder”, which is often translated as “stage designer.” Yet I suggest that Otto-Knapp’s paintings also evoke a quality of scenography, by which I mean the multiple methods used to evoke atmospheres of place in theatrical performances, such as set, light, sound, or costume. Silke Otto-Knapp’s paintings could be seen to represent stage environments. But at the same time, one could argue that, as with the stage environments they evoke, her paintings enact a feeling of place that others, complicates, and reveals normative orders of place. This is my starting point for proposing “painting scenographics.”
Scenography and Art History: Performance Design and Visual Culture, 2021
I always feel that scenography works best at a border. If you arrive to this book as an art histo... more I always feel that scenography works best at a border. If you arrive to this book as an art historian, border thinking is one key for unlocking its potential for art history. Indeed, I encourage you to think of scenography as the crafting of borders. Whether in terms of disciplines or materialities, scenography weaves border feelings by highlighting the intersection of distinct stagecrafts, media, and ontological spillages between the politically contrived and ‘the real’. In doing so, it leans on a cross-disciplinary range of subjects, techniques and processes that exceed the institutional contexts of theatre. Historically, scenographic practice has been conceptualized as a lesser form of architecture, akin to a potemkin village or painted backdrop, that serves only to communicate a preexisting message. Contemporary approaches to scenography embrace a more holistic account of how the combination of materiality, light, scent, or even temperature evoke feelings of place. The interface of scenography and art history provides an apt context from which to re-map and re-think the underlying borders and anti-theatrical biases that frame scenographic cultures. Whether the critical possibilities of a stage set or the multi-sensory experiences of gardens, I encourage you to consider how scenographic techniques are present in a range of staged material cultures that intervene, irritate or complicated normative flows of space and place.
It's 2019 as I write this opening statement. In the UK, we have just experienced the hottest Febr... more It's 2019 as I write this opening statement. In the UK, we have just experienced the hottest February on record with temperatures as high as 20.6C1. This is one year on from what the UK media termed 'The Beast from the East', which saw average temperatures fall to-11C2 in the same calendar month. At the same time, the east coast of the United States has just experienced a cold snap with warnings not to leave your home unless obsoletely necessary. Climate scientists have warned that, based on an analysis of trends over 50 years, the increasing regularity of extreme weather conditions across the planet will become the norm3. While this has a direct impact on our living patterns and infrastructure, it also impacts the seasonal cycles of insects, plants and migratory birds that human food chains are reliant upon. Social and climate justice movements will need to act in unison if resources become increasingly regulated, horded and re-allocated. The need to prepare humanity for, what the anthropologist Arturo Escobar (2018) calls, 'civilization change' would have to occur as much through cultural and social interventions as via political reorganisation. Crucial to this shift will be challenging how 'the world' is imagined, deliberated, and practiced within social and political discourses.
This article document the lecture 'Scenographic Futures', presented as part of the session PQ TAL... more This article document the lecture 'Scenographic Futures', presented as part of the session PQ TALKS, at PQ 2019, a position statements called 'Changing the Question' is presented to reflect if rather than asking what is scenography, now the question is what does scenography do? How scenography affects, channels, and orientate experiences of stage, place, and world.
Este artigo documenta a palestra 'Scenographic Futures', apresentada como parte da sessão PQ TALKS, na PQ 2019, uma declaração de posição chamada 'Changing the Question' é apresentada para refletir se, em vez de perguntar o que é cenografia, agora a pergunta é o que a cenografia faz? Como a cenografia afeta, canaliza e orienta experiências de palco, lugar e mundo.
In this article, I present an argument for a proposed focus of ‘critical costume’. Critical Costu... more In this article, I present an argument for a proposed focus of ‘critical costume’. Critical Costume, as a research platform, was founded in 2013 to promote new debate and scholarship on the status of costume in contemporary art and culture. We have now hosted two biennial conferences and exhibitions (Edge Hill University 2013, Aalto University 2015). These events have exposed an international appetite for a renewed look at how costume is studied, practised and theorized. Significantly, Critical Costume is focused on an inclusive remit that is interdisciplinary and supports a range of ‘voices’: from theatre and anthropology scholars to working artists. In that regard, I offer an initial argument for how we might collectively navigate this interdisciplinary field of practice with reference to other self-identified critical approaches to art and design. By focusing on an interdisciplinary perspective on costume, my intention is to invite new readings and connections between popular practices, such as Halloween and cosplay, with the refined crafts of theatrical and film professionals. I argue that costume is a vital element of performance practice – as well as an extra-daily component of our social lives – that affords distinct methods for critiquing how appearance is sustained, disciplined and regulated. I conclude by offering a position on the provocation of critical costume and a word of caution on the argument for disciplinarity.
Abstract: Our guest editorial takes the form of an interview between the JAWS editorial team and ... more Abstract: Our guest editorial takes the form of an interview between the JAWS editorial team and Dr Rachel Hann. JAWS: A lot of different disciplines are involved with Practice as Research (PaR) under different names, such as artistic research, arts-based research, practice research, etc. Is there a need to bridge the gap between these modes of practice and areas of discourse? Rachel Hann (RH): My embracing of 'practice research' (see Hann 2015) seeks to bring the established positions on conducting research through practice together under one heading. Indeed, I had become tired of the circular arguments that would occur about the differences between practice as/ through/based/led research. While these were useful at a granular level, they often side-stepped the larger issues of how practice-researchers across disciplinary areas operate within universities and research ecologies. 'Practice research' is loose enough that it does not privilege any of these sub-debates, while also being new enough that it invites a focus on the future. Yet, I remain distinctly aware that some of these approaches represent distinct positions on the question of 'who' researches as much as 'what' is
Keywords: practice research, social good vs. academic good, accessibility, curated portfolio, peer review, legibility
This article announces the creation of a new section in STP dedicated to the dissemination of Pra... more This article announces the creation of a new section in STP dedicated to the dissemination of Practice-as-Research (PaR) projects. The authors argue the need for a sustainable archive for PaR outcomes, which embraces a range of media formats and curatorial strategies.
Costume is critical. It is critical to making performance, critical to spectator- ship, criticall... more Costume is critical. It is critical to making performance, critical to spectator- ship, critically overlooked within scholarship, notable when in crisis, and a means of critically interrogating the body. It is therefore critical that we discuss costume. Yet, it is equally imperative for costume to find appropriate methods and frameworks to support new forms of practice. A critical discourse of costume aims to promote new questions and scholarship on the intersections between body, design and performance. This is the concern of critical costume.
Abstract: To interrogate the role of architecture within intermedial digital opera, this article ... more Abstract: To interrogate the role of architecture within intermedial digital opera, this article returns to a model of performance architecture as conceived by Swiss scenographer Adolphe Appia (1842-1928) and German architect Heinrich Tessenow (1876-1950) for the Festspielhaus Hellerau (1911).
Architects Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio have questioned conventional approaches to spati... more Architects Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio have questioned conventional approaches to spatial temporality and the situation of architecture since the late 1970s. Now joined by Charles Renfro, the installation and architectural projects of their interdisciplinary design studio Diller Scofidio+ Renfro are representative of the shift from the aesthetic architectures of post-modernism towards a critical architecture based upon the principles of time-based art.
Accompanying the Prague Quadrennial's profound shift from previously describing itself as an ‘Int... more Accompanying the Prague Quadrennial's profound shift from previously describing itself as an ‘International Exhibition of Scenography and Architecture’ to the punchier and more ambitious ‘Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space’, the 2011 edition witnessed the inclusion of an Open Spatial Lab as an addition to its Architecture Section. This was a ten-day workshop comprised of twenty-one invited practitioners and scholars from around the globe to discuss both the present and the future of theatre and performance architecture.
ERA21 [Czech Journal of Architecture] Special Issue on Sceno-Architecture, 2011
The Festspielhaus Hellerau (1911) is recognized as the first purpose-built “studio“ performance s... more The Festspielhaus Hellerau (1911) is recognized as the first purpose-built “studio“ performance space. Scenographer Adolphe Appia and architect Heinrich Tessenow’s architectural legacy is once again an active site of experimentation following a 2006 renovation. Moreover, the current artistic residency of William Forsythe’s dance company has continued Appia’s vision for a future performance practice through an intermedial approach. Importantly, the body, within the work of Forsythe and Appia, remains a locus of artistic convergence as it encompasses the “open“ architecture at Hellerau.
In the 1920s and 1930s several proposals for a new form of theatrical architecture were conceived... more In the 1920s and 1930s several proposals for a new form of theatrical architecture were conceived. Though unrealized, these Utopian designs engendered an idealized ambition for dramatic reform and have come to represent significant developments within Modernist theatre architecture. These include the visions of Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874–1940), Walter Gropius (1883–1969), and Frederick Kiesler (1890–1965). Nevertheless, their incomplete status dictates that the dramaturgical potential of these idealized ventures remains elusive in the absence of a ‘complete’ artefact.
This thesis is an investigation of these Utopian theatres through the practice of computer-based 3D visualization. Approached as a research methodology, the structural and dramaturgical implications of these lost theatres are examined through the process of – albeit virtual – ‘realization’. However, the use of this technology to articulate and conduct cultural heritage research has been deemed a problematic enterprise within the academy. Since its inception in the late 1980s, heritage visualization has been consistently berated for its susceptibility to subjective coefficients and the apparent absence of a scholarly narrative.
In response to this methodological concern, this project’s research strategy is drawn from the recommendations of the London Charter 20091. First drafted in 2006, the London Charter is an initiative designed to enhance the academic validity and accessibility of visualization-based research and practice under the wider remit of cultural heritage. Concerned with intellectual transparency and accessibility, it outlines the requirements for academic scrutiny and acceptance. Notably this extends to an acknowledgement of ‘all information, digital and non-digital, considered during, or directly influencing, the creation of computer-based visualization outcomes’ [The London Charter 2009: 7].
Consequently, the aim of this thesis is to examine the implications of intellectual transparency for heritage visualization. The written component confronts this aim through an examination of computer-based 3D visualization as a research methodology: this includes possible strategies for knowledge representation and citation methods. Observations from this review support a wider consideration of, what are termed here, ‘procedural coefficients’ and their role in piecing together possible ‘pasts’ in support of a cohesive visualization.
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Papers by Rachel Hann
Este artigo documenta a palestra 'Scenographic Futures', apresentada como parte da sessão PQ TALKS, na PQ 2019, uma declaração de posição chamada 'Changing the Question' é apresentada para refletir se, em vez de perguntar o que é cenografia, agora a pergunta é o que a cenografia faz? Como a cenografia afeta, canaliza e orienta experiências de palco, lugar e mundo.
Keywords: practice research, social good vs. academic good, accessibility, curated portfolio, peer review, legibility
This thesis is an investigation of these Utopian theatres through the practice of computer-based 3D visualization. Approached as a research methodology, the structural and dramaturgical implications of these lost theatres are examined through the process of – albeit virtual – ‘realization’. However, the use of this technology to articulate and conduct cultural heritage research has been deemed a problematic enterprise within the academy. Since its inception in the late 1980s, heritage visualization has been consistently berated for its susceptibility to subjective coefficients and the apparent absence of a scholarly narrative.
In response to this methodological concern, this project’s research strategy is drawn from the recommendations of the London Charter 20091. First drafted in 2006, the London Charter is an initiative designed to enhance the academic validity and accessibility of visualization-based research and practice under the wider remit of cultural heritage. Concerned with intellectual transparency and accessibility, it outlines the requirements for academic scrutiny and acceptance. Notably this extends to an acknowledgement of ‘all information, digital and non-digital, considered during, or directly influencing, the creation of computer-based visualization outcomes’ [The London Charter 2009: 7].
Consequently, the aim of this thesis is to examine the implications of intellectual transparency for heritage visualization. The written component confronts this aim through an examination of computer-based 3D visualization as a research methodology: this includes possible strategies for knowledge representation and citation methods. Observations from this review support a wider consideration of, what are termed here, ‘procedural coefficients’ and their role in piecing together possible ‘pasts’ in support of a cohesive visualization.
Este artigo documenta a palestra 'Scenographic Futures', apresentada como parte da sessão PQ TALKS, na PQ 2019, uma declaração de posição chamada 'Changing the Question' é apresentada para refletir se, em vez de perguntar o que é cenografia, agora a pergunta é o que a cenografia faz? Como a cenografia afeta, canaliza e orienta experiências de palco, lugar e mundo.
Keywords: practice research, social good vs. academic good, accessibility, curated portfolio, peer review, legibility
This thesis is an investigation of these Utopian theatres through the practice of computer-based 3D visualization. Approached as a research methodology, the structural and dramaturgical implications of these lost theatres are examined through the process of – albeit virtual – ‘realization’. However, the use of this technology to articulate and conduct cultural heritage research has been deemed a problematic enterprise within the academy. Since its inception in the late 1980s, heritage visualization has been consistently berated for its susceptibility to subjective coefficients and the apparent absence of a scholarly narrative.
In response to this methodological concern, this project’s research strategy is drawn from the recommendations of the London Charter 20091. First drafted in 2006, the London Charter is an initiative designed to enhance the academic validity and accessibility of visualization-based research and practice under the wider remit of cultural heritage. Concerned with intellectual transparency and accessibility, it outlines the requirements for academic scrutiny and acceptance. Notably this extends to an acknowledgement of ‘all information, digital and non-digital, considered during, or directly influencing, the creation of computer-based visualization outcomes’ [The London Charter 2009: 7].
Consequently, the aim of this thesis is to examine the implications of intellectual transparency for heritage visualization. The written component confronts this aim through an examination of computer-based 3D visualization as a research methodology: this includes possible strategies for knowledge representation and citation methods. Observations from this review support a wider consideration of, what are termed here, ‘procedural coefficients’ and their role in piecing together possible ‘pasts’ in support of a cohesive visualization.