Virtual Models in Theatre, Art and Architecture: Making Worlds (Performance and Design)

Brejzek, Thea

ISBN 10: 1350449806 / ISBN 13: 9781350449800

Published by Methuen Drama, 2025

Seller Inventory # mon0004014736

Synopsis:

What is the impact of virtual models and realms in contemporary theatre, art and architecture? This volume explores the evolution of virtual models, their transformative spatial potential, and their capacity for world-making using a range of case studies drawn from global contemporary theatre, art and architecture practice. It draws upon a rich array of contemporary examples, including the Japanese artist collective Dumb Type, Chinese artist Lu Yang, US­-Iranian artist Morehshin Allahyari, Björk, and the UK research agency Forensic Architecture. In parallel, a historical overview focused on the formative years of digital society provides context to the rapid development of virtual technologies, including the work of architecture collectives Superstudio and Archigram and seminal art, performance and technology collaborations from 1960s New York onward, enabled by institutions such as MoMA and Bell Labs. Behind this inquiry is a historical and theoretical positioning of the immaterial and its relationship to the material. Discussing emerging forms of expanded reality (XR) as devices in the theoretical and cultural framework of the virtual model, this study reveals the processes made visible in exhibitions, installations and performances while focusing on overlapping spaces, narratives and actors as they contribute to constructing virtual worlds. Virtual Models in Theatre, Art and Architecture: Making Worlds reframes the virtual model as dispositif at the interface of the real, the fictional and the virtual, encouraging the reader to critically consider how new technologies open new spaces for knowledge creation and creative expression.

About the Authors: Thea Brejzek (PhD, Mphil) is Professor for Spatial Theory at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, and an internationally recognised expert in scenography. In 2011, she was the founding Curator for Theory at the Prague Quadrennial for Performance Design and Space (PQ). Recently, she has been a Visiting Professor at Bartlett School of Architecture, UK, and has been appointed to the international scientific advisory board of the Bauhaus, Dessau.

Lawrence Wallen (PhD, MArch, BArch) is Professor and Head of School of Design at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. From 2001-12 he was Professor of Scenography at the Zurich University of the Arts. A trained visual artist and architect, his research and practice is concerned with representation of space, spatial narative and postcolonial readings of landscape.

Joslin McKinney is Professor of Scenography at the University of Leeds, UK. She is the lead author of the Cambridge Introduction to Scenography (2009) and co-editor of Scenography Expanded (Bloomsbury, 2017). She has published articles and chapters
on scenographic research methods, scenographic spectacle and embodied spectatorship, phenomenology, kinaesthetic empathy and material agency.

Scott Palmer is Professor of Light and Performance in the School of Performance & Cultural Industries, University of Leeds, UK. He is the co-editor with Joslin McKinney of Scenography Expanded: An Introduction to Contemporary Performance Design and with Katherine Graham and Kelli Zezulka of Contemporary Performance Lighting: Experience, Creativity and Meaning.

Stephen A. Di Benedetto is Professor and Chair of the Department of Theatre Michigan State University, USA. He is Associate Editor (Drama) for ASAP/ Journal and Associate Editor for Scene . His books include The Provocation of the Senses in Contemporary Theatre (2010) and An Introduction to Theatre Design (2012).

Bibliographic Details

Title: Virtual Models in Theatre, Art and ...
Publisher: Methuen Drama
Publication Date: 2025
Binding: hardcover
Condition: Fine