Can Theater and Media Speak the Same Language Reading Notes Pt. 2

Aronson: Can Theater and Media Speak the Same Language?

NOTES, PART TWO:

•In the case of turning Georges Rouault’s artwork (paintings that looked like geometrically-conscious stained glass) into actual stained glass, it did not work. When translated into real stained glass artwork, Rouault’s images looked bad.

•Hence, transforming his media into a new media failed.

•In the case of Cathedral, Moorish, and Islamic architecture, a variety of media vocabularies (types of media) are present on the same stage (the enclosed structure of the building. This has worked out just fine for them.

•Those architectures have decorative and painterly embellishments. Living collage successfully created by both painted and sculpted pieces occupying same space.

•Hence, Cathedral, Moorish, and Islamic architecture successfully incorporate more than one media vocabulary.

•Wooster Group. Their work investigates special reality, temporal reality, and relation of live theater to video culture. Questions nature of “presence”. Include video in their designs as a comment on the omnipresence of video in our times. They question our various modes of seeing. However, they do not erroneously substitute video for more conventional theater design practices. They do not cross the line and falter.

•Examples of modern theater groups successfully incorporating the media of technology into stage design:

•Wooster Group very innovative in using media and technology on stage. Sometimes, a sense of media as fetish object.

•Collapsable Giraffe and Radio hole, theater groups of younger generation. Literally play with technology on stage. Have demystified video and technology as design element.

•These two younger groups have screens and monitors all over stage, nothing mystical about it. Do not treat technology as astounding miracale. Treated as chunks of plastic, not revered items.

•Oftentimes, theater creators are caught up in jamming too much mystical technology into their sets, think that this is best method. Fail to incorporate and explore a fusion of media vocabularies. Fortunately, Western theater starting to rethink use of external medias in theater.