The Stage as Organism: Liveness, Dynamics and Expression in Early Twentieth Century Scenography

Abstract

The histories of liveness entwining theater and media technologies have traditionally emphasized the tension between the mediated (not real time) and the live (that which takes place in its moment of presence). These arguments have been well rehearsed, with performance studies scholars like Philip Auslander and Peggy Phelan debating the body’s disappearance into Baudrillardian image simulacra to more recent studies who view electronic images as the central technology for performance. An alternative history that is largely unknown to new media scholars and practitioners, however, is that of theater scenography: the technological fusion of scenery, lighting, costumes and media which has been exemplified in the radical work of early 20th century artists like El Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy, Kiesler, Tatlin, Svoboda and more recent projects from architects like Herzog/De Meuron and Coop Himmelb(l)au. This paper will survey the historical practices of three specific early twentieth century artists/designers (Vsevolod Meyerhold, Lyubov Popova and Frederick J. Kiesler) who sought not only to re-conceive the stage as hybrid machine and organism with the new technologies of their time but also have redefined liveness through the transformation and folding of the human performer into novel assemblies of mechanical and material expression; machines that exhibit behaviors and dynamics that, while ìlive,î are decidedly not human.