On the border between performance, science and the digital: The embodied orrery

Vanhoutte, Kurt; Bigg, Charlotte

doi:10.1080/14794713.2014.946291

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Theatre and dance, the embodied arts par excellence, have been judged prime places to explore how bodies mattered with respect to knowledge, and its modes of transmission complementary to 'libraries and archives' (Schneider 2011;Fors, Principe, and Otto Sibum 2016). Eric Joris' artistic re-enactment of a walking orrery through innovative digital technologies was the means for us to explore historical instances of scientific theatre and intermediality with a particular focus on the interaction between spectators and technologies (Vanhoutte and Bigg 2014). We found that, like astronomical spectacles and like the modern genres of the féerie and the phantasmagoria, CREW's performance of astronomy delves its spectators into a double-consciousness as it carefully manoeuvres between immersion and contemplation, involvement and distancing, sensation and meditation.…”

Section: Rethinking Spectaclementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the context of PARS, artist Eric Joris and CREW developed Celestial Bodies, a family of immersive and interactive virtual orreries through which approaches and methodologies for studying visual cultures could be developed to explore the performativity of images, the bodily engagement of spectactors and how embodied experiences of spectacular astronomy might stimulate belief. A series of public performances also provided an opportunity to foster public reflection on the changing meanings and technical modalities of scientific spectacle, including their practical implementation for science communication in or as future planetariums (see Vanhoutte and Bigg 2014).…”

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Spectacular astronomy

Bigg

Vanhoutte

2017

Early Popular Visual Culture

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T)he science of astronomy is, perhaps, more than any other which can be named of the whole circle, the very science of which a popular display may most successfully be aided by the ornamental arts. Music, painting, sculpture, may be called in as auxiliaries, with powerful effect, and manifest benefit; a tasteful introduction of poetry may be deemed almost essential to success; and we would undertake that Urania need not disdain the co-operation of Terpsichore herself. (Horace Wellbeloved 1826) Never was a medium of demonstration produced as instructive as this, never one more fascinating in effect, and never one which appeals to everybody as this does. It is a school, theatre and film all in one, a lecture hall under the vault of the heavens, and a spectacle in which the celestial bodies are actors. (Elis Strömgren, 1925, quoted in Walter Villiger 1931 If you had visited Paris, Barcelona, London, New York or Berlin in the nineteenth century, it is quite probable that on an evening out you might have attended an astronomy performance. It was, increasingly, a time for mass involvement in science. Public demonstrations and lectures in academic venues and observatories, in public spaces, theatres and opera were widely available to urban publics. These events were often intermedial shows combining theatrical modalities with optical instruments, mechanical devices, moving transparent paintings and magic lantern slides. The shows mingled heavenly and earthly concerns, delivering cosmological narratives that also thematised the place of man, progress and technology in a rapidly evolving world. As with many other shows of the nineteenth and early twentieth century such as wax museums, panoramas or international exhibitions, the distinction between sensational entertainment and scientific demonstration was often difficult to draw and prompted debates. The appeal of astronomical spectacles did not wane in the twentieth century, they merely took new forms when the first dome-shaped projection planetariums began appearing in German cities in the 1920s. The new modern theatres of the stars were greeted with awe and reverence, and to this day they testify to the vivid public appetite for both myth and progress. In these venues audiences engaged with science, technology and the world; modernity negotiated the contradictions of its own times. This collection of essays was prepared by a research network that goes under the name of PARS/Performing Astronomy Research Society (www.parsnetwork.org). This initiative brings together an international group of researchers from the human, social and exact sciences as well as artists, visual technicians and planetarium professionals to investigate the history,

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Section: Rethinking Spectaclementioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Spectacular astronomy

Bigg

Vanhoutte

2017

Early Popular Visual Culture

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“…These authors focus mainly on the integration of analogue and digital technologies into the live context of the theatre and discuss the consequences of this hybridization for the ontology, aesthetic categories, and reception of digital performance (Auslander 1999;Dixon 2007). The growing need for a thorough historicization of contemporary accounts of digital performance and intermediality has only recently been acknowledged (Reilly 2013;Vanhoutte and Bigg 2014;Wynants 2017). This volume proposes media archaeology as a promising but as yet undeveloped approach to intermedial theatre and performance.…”

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confidence: 99%

Media-Archaeological Approaches to Theatre and Performance: An Introduction

Wynants

2018

Media Archaeology and Intermedial Performance

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As an age-old art form, theatre has always embraced "new" media. Literally "a place to observe", the theatron has often been a favoured platform for trying new technologies and scientific objects, including mirrors, electric light, the magic lantern, the théâtrophone, and, more recently, cameras, digital projection devices, and mobile media. To create theatrical effects and optical illusions, theatre makers have always been ready to adopt stateof-the-art techniques and technologies, and in doing so they have playfully explored and propagated a knowledge of mechanics, optics, and sound to live audiences. Similarly today, in this digital era, performance and media artists are showing a renewed interest in both old and new media and technologies-by experimenting with these media, they explore the potential and limits of scientific and technological developments. In this way, their performances continue the scientific tradition of experimental inquiry, which has traditionally tended to exploit the potential for spectacle of its experiments. Theatre history thus reflects the history of science, technology, and media.

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Hamlet’s Lunacy, CREW

Mancewicz

2022

Adaptation in Theatre and Performance

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On the border between performance, science and the digital: The embodied orrery

Cited by 7 publications

References 3 publications

Spectacular astronomy

Spectacular astronomy

Media-Archaeological Approaches to Theatre and Performance: An Introduction

Hamlet’s Lunacy, CREW

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