elise vasseur

 Einstein's Dreams @ Hexagram Black Box (Montréal, QC) March 13, 2013. Topological Media Lab

  Realtime immersive environment in which visitors encounter performers through different tableau of sounds and lights.  “ Our experimental goal will be to discover ways to not just depict different kinds of temporal processes, but to condition a physical setting to yield in-person experiences of these different ways of being in time. “

http://topologicalmedialab.net/research/movement-and-gesture/media-choreography/einsteins-dream/ 

Einstein’s Dreams, Guilherme Martins 

Peter Brook, The Empty Space

Peter Brook 

Né le 21 mars 1925 à Chiswick à Londres, est un metteur en scène, acteur, réalisateur et écrivain britannique. 

Artiste novateur dans ses interprétations des pièces du grand répertoire international, et plus particulièrement des classiques de Shakespeare, il est le théoricien de « l’espace vide ». Depuis le milieu des années 1970, sa compagnie est en résidence à Paris au Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord. 

Il monte à la fois des classiques (dont Shakespeare) et des pièces d’auteurs contemporains comme Jean Anouilh, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Genet, André Roussin et des auteurs d’avant-garde tel Peter Weiss. Il veut rapprocher le cinéma et le théâtre. Peter Brook s'inscrit, comme Giorgio Strehler ou Jean Vilar, dans le nouveau courant du théâtre, influencé par Brecht ou l'héritage de Jacques Copeau et Edward Gordon Craig. Il va travailler dans cet esprit sur des pièces de Shakespeare comme La Tempête et Hamlet.

1959 : adaptation cinématographique de Moderato Cantabile (Marguerite Duras) avec Jeanne Moreau et Jean-Paul Belmondo. 

1962 : Le Roi Lear, Royal Shakespeare Company : Il décide de renoncer au décor pour œuvrer dans ce qu'il appellera « l'espace vide », lequel doit développer l'imagination du spectateur. Il poussera plus loin l’expérience en s’inspirant du « théâtre de la cruauté » d’Antonin Artaud, qui est en prise directe avec le public.

1966 : US, une pièce traitant de la guerre du Viêt Nam qui repose entièrement sur le travail d'improvisation de sa troupe. À partir de ce moment il se démarque définitivement du théâtre traditionnel. 

1971 : Il fonde le Centre international de recherche théâtrale (CIRT)

PODCAST : https://www.franceculture.fr/personne-peter-brook.html

Michael Najjar - Netropolis

“The work series entitled netropolis is an exploration of the way global cities will develop in the future. Of similar magnitude to the impact of the industrial revolution in the late 19th century, it is now computer networks and the information society based on them which are the main vehicles for change, the key elements transforming the face of our urban living spaces.

Three main components characterize this transformation: space becomes the image of space, the city itself becomes a terminal as real space fuses with telematic space. In the telematic society material embodiment is further supplemented and extended by virtual representation: the so-called “tele-polis”. Telematic space endows the urban environment with a new form of structure, intermingling with it and giving birth to a completely unprecedented form of urban space.

Viewing the city from a distance inverses the perceptual order of objects viewed in close-up. The view from afar is oriented on what is clearly visible from a distance and provides a context for objects which appear too close when viewed close up and thus retain their strangeness. In virtual space, however, distance and proximity lie on the selfsame level. The different cities and relationship strands need first to be combined and interwoven before they can give rise to a completely unprecedented and imaginary form of urbanity – the telematic netropolis.

The netropolis series of works portrays the megacities of Berlin, London, Mexico City, New York, Paris, São Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo. The work series comprises of eight hybrid-photographies, one video work and one image sculpture.

Michael Najjar is a German artist, adventurer and – future astronaut. Born in 1966, he has lived and worked in Berlin since 1988. His work is shown in museums, galleries and biennials around the world. He works with Photography and Video. The focus of his work is on key elements of our modern society driven and controlled by computer and information technologies.”

Adrien M & Claire B : Le mouvement de l’air, 2015, 1h

“ Un spectacle frontal pour trois danseurs, où la chorégraphie, les images et la musique s'assemblent et se tressent pour donner à percevoir l’invisible du mouvement de l’air.

Donner corps à l’imperceptible : rendre visible l’invisible d’un mouvement d’air, dans ses trajectoires aux nuances infinies, imaginaire variant du plus doux et lent, au plus vif et transparent, du plus puissant au plus subtil. Ce spectacle est le parcours d’une respiration, le velouté d’une voix qui nous guide dans un rêve éveillé où le seuil de l’impossible s’est évaporé : les images sortent de leur cadre pour devenir des espaces et des partenaires de jeu, et les corps s’affranchissent de leur poids grâce au dispositif de suspension. Pas de prouesse technique, mais un onirisme du mouvement. Pas d’histoire, mais une écriture par l’image et une aspiration : celle de se laisser porter par le mouvement de l’air pour ouvrir, déplacer les limites, délier les chevilles et les poignets. Laisser le rêve de vol gagner sur l’angoisse de chute.”

Pina Bausch (1940-2009) : choregrapher founder of the Tanztheater Wuppertal. One of the main pionner of contemporary dance and dance-theatre in the 1970′s . She works according to the anatomy and possibilities of each person's body, encompassing both narrative and emotionnal potential of bodies. She draws on the intimate story of her dansers to extract movement from it. The sensuality, expressiveness, freedom and personality of each dancer is magnified.

“Aucun ne se perd dans la troupe, ne se noie dans le collectif. Les individualités y sont très fortes sans qu’aucun ne se mette en avant. Chacun existe très fortement sans jamais éclipser celui d’à côté.” Pariscope

Leopold Jessner, Richard III, 1920 

Expressionnisme (1910-1924) : German movement working after the destruction of WWI which rejected Realism and decorative art. They instead embraced abstraction.  In set design, scenography attept to embody the character’s mind. 

 “Expressionnisme was thought to project strong feelings into objects and to portray them as modified and distorted by the painter’s own vision” (Brockett, page 415)

Merlin Coverley, "Dérive is the urban wandering, the reinvention of the city by imagination, the new experiences of familiar places.” (Psychogeography, 2006)

Psychogeography is a theory which assessing the relationship between the organization of sceneries and their impact on bodies. This became a tool to draw a distinction between two different relationships. First, the utilitarian urbanism that is efficient, regulated and preset, controlling people’s behaviour. Secondly, the unitarian urbanism, that follows people’s needs by giving boundaries to life, without curbing it, and where none experience is imposed, they’re all subjectively created and interpreted. 

Punchdrunk : British theater company formed in 2000 by Felix Barrett. It has pionneered a form of immersive theater in which the audience is fully involved and is free to choose what they want to watch and where they want to go. The audience wear masks, they’re free to roam around the production to witness the performance by many perspectives. The action of the play is deconstructed, often reordered with multiple scenes playing at once in different places. 

Site-specific, non-traditional settings, unusual and unknown places. Works are created in relation with the architecture. Audience are the starting point of the narration : who are they ? what is their role into the play? How do they interact with the performers?...

Origin of the concept : the first play directed by F.Barrett  during his studies was about an unfinished script written by Georg Büchner for “Woyzeck.” The order of the scenes was unknown, so he chose to scatter the different scenes in a same site so that they are played simultaneously. 

Most successful shows : Sleep no more, The drowned man, The mask of the red death, Faust, The firebird Ball

The Living Theatre has given a fresh impetus to the European theatre by trying to emancipate from the traditional theatre language. Led by Julian Beck and Judith Malina, this libertarian experimental theatre group wanted the audience to be fully involved in the play like one of the main component of the dramatic creation. The audience was invited to lay with the actors, to give solution and change the narrative. There is no more clear separation between stage and theatre, the corporal and spatial distances become blurred.

Phenomenology : Philosophical movement developed during the 20th century by E.Husserl and M.Heidegger. It corresponds to an intellectual stimulation of mind about the phenomenon and what they mask. This is a way to question personally the essence of things in order to give meaning to all that surround us.  Phenomenology is a very subjective and individual action, in opposition to Semiology that implies a more objective and common perception of signs. 

Maurice Merleau Ponty :  “perception is the synesthetic process in which the senses communicate with each other (…) before an intellectual analysis.” (The Cambridge introduction to scenography, 2009)

Jason Bruges Studio :  Since 2002, team of architects, lighting designers, electronic engineers, programmers, visualisers, industrial designers and mechanical engineers. They design and build interactive installations that create innovative and engaging spaces which connect people with their environment.

Illuminating York festival : A large-scale light installation to show off the gothic architectural qualities of York Minster cathedral. “You get to see the modulation of architecture and really we’re sculpting our own ephemeral nave within the real one, to look at the space.”