The Art of Scenography: Epistemes and Aesthetics

• Applicant: Privatdozentin Dr. Birgit Elke Wiens
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies ; Art History
• Term: from 2015 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 268757079

Scenography appears in contemporary art in multiform ways; it occurs as an interart phenomenon that unfolds its forms, parameters and designs within diverse fields: The spectrum ranges from theatre scenography and 'environmental scenography', also film and media scenography to exhibition design, commercial 'corporate scenography' and spatial design. As a subject of scholarly research, scenography has hitherto fallen into the threshold between theatre and art science: In art science, research into aesthetics and the epistemes of scenography still has to be undertaken beyond the available approaches, since - as an event-driven art - it has not been focused on there (cf. Bohn/Wilharm 2009, 2011). In theatre studies - since performance analysis focuses especially on the performer, the actors, the dancers (and respectively on the 'feedback loop' between them and the audience, cf. Fischer-Lichte 2005) - it has also not been sufficiently taken account of. The project aims to provide a corrective to existing methods and research agendas by proposing a change in perspective: It takes up the demand by artists such as, for example, Heiner Goebbels to not understand space, its media and the staged objects just as the backdrop or as decoration, but to comprehend these as 'co-players' as well (and if one looks closer, this is a demand that has already been virulent since the modern age). In other words: In performative processes, the presence of media, things and (human) performers shall be investigated in the sense of symmetric relations (cf. B.Latour), and as a consequence - at the level of project development and rehearsal - scenographic design and concepts of movement should be analysed as interdependent concepts. The project's task is to organize an international conference, entitled "The Art of Scenography: Epistemes and Aesthetics", which shall focus on scenographic score and notation. With this conference, the mediating as well as structuring and steering functions that scenographic notation (e.g. sketches, scenographic scripts, storyboards, scores) takes on in performative processes will be, for the first time, brought into the focus of research. Special attention will be put on observations of cultural techniques of design in order to analyze scenographic strategies and processes (also in the sense of 'agency') in the area between draft, prescription and realisation/ transformation. Another aspect will focus on identifying and differentiating 'phenomeno techniques' (Bachelard), in order to investigate what forms of 'scenographic knowledge' are to be found within the arts. Under the mentioned aspects, scenography is an under-researched field and phenomenon: This is true not only concerning the analysis of reception but also the questions of the aesthetics of production, and especially the latter does deserve particular attention given the changed, process-oriented concepts of scenography which are emerging and have become eminent in the arts.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants