Scenography as architectural experimentation

Abstract

Architecture and scenography have been sharing, historically, researches on the concept of space, time dimensions, illusion and reality. Whenever science and technology propose new dimensions, it is Art that tries to experiment them first and remind us that space and time are constructions that can be re-read and disassembled. In this first section, we investigated Diller+Scofidio sceneries for Moving Target (1996) and EJM 1 and 2 (1998) Frédéric Flamand´s choreographies; and Herzog&DeMeuron sceneries for Tristan und Isolde (Berlin Opera House, 2006) and Attila (Metropolitan Opera House, 2010). Crossing theorist’s thoughts on art, theater and architecture, as Hal Foster, Rafael Moneo and RoseLee Goldberg, the investigation seeks to baste the scenography and architecture projects in the same research field claimed by each of the architects. In the work of Diller+Scofidio, stands out the thought about real and mediated images and the new dimensions of space. For Herzog&DeMeuron, the screen and the texture materials power up the light design, starting questions about volume and planarity, as well as theatricality and reality. The works studied reflect in these artistic fields the contemporary notions of space-and-time, hybridity and virtual processing. They show how the nature of the spectacle has taken architecture, launching it into a research on illusion, space-time and movement or, for Tschumi, the replacement of "utilitas" or "function" by the "event".