Unimagined Spatial Performativity in three Scenographic Assemblages

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Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Doctoral thesis (monograph)

Date

2023

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

160

Series

Aalto University publication series DOCTORAL THESES, 211/2023

Abstract

My research presents a philosophical retrospective report and analysis of accidental aesthetic encounters with unimagined scenographic performativity. The aim is to point at the aesthetic potential of the ephemeral in the construction-rehearsal processes of scenography and to what I present as evanescent spatialities. Conceptualizing the unimagined spatial performativity aims to aesthetically appreciate the most ordinary, incidental scenographic assemblages that display their brief performativity away from the gaze of a conventional public. Evanescent spatialities are not necessarily or primarily designed by human agents, nor are they conditioned to "exist" by the presence of a human performer or human audiences; rather, they occur autonomously and spontaneously and may be discovered or provoked by the act of playing. I took a feminist post-human approach to understanding that scenographies work as human and nonhuman assemblages and that bodies in space are always performing their own agenda. My research exposes an intimate and authorized visual archive that makes my photographic and video work an expansion of my practice. I envision that scenographers will continue to expand the discipline by exploring the world beyond anthropocentrism and the capitalism of the humanmade. My study performs my conviction that a scenographer can also act as a philosopher and as a political activist.

Description

Supervising professor

Pantouvaki, Sofia, Dr., Aalto University, Dept. Film, Television and Scenography, Finland

Thesis advisor

Loukola, Maiju, Dr., University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland

Keywords

expanded scenography, evanescent spatialities, feminism, posthumanism, more-than-human, material thinking

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