Publications & other works
Publications & other works
This study seeks to alternatively analyze the claims and significance of Antonin Artaud(1896-1948)’s ‘Theater of Cruelty(Le théâtre de la cruauté)’ by examining the relationship between reality and fiction in theater through the concept of ‘fictional presence’. In particular, the goal is to analyze the reason why understanding of the Theater of Cruelty is so difficult, and to reinterpret the distinctiveness of his argument with a focus on the fictionality of theatre. Through this, we aim to resolve the misunderstanding surrounding Artaud's Theater of Cruelty, which has been understood as pursuing the impossible goal of pure presence as a pioneer of performance art.
Antonin Artaud's Theater of Cruelty is often understood as an attempt to reject the illusionism and text-centeredness of contemporary theater for the reality of the stage, and has been influential in that way. However, in Theater and its Double (Le Théâtre et son Double, 1938), he compared the play to a 'dream' or a 'mirage' and emphasized that theater exists as an illusion, while also insisting on recovering the sensibility and materiality of the stage. So what is this theatrical illusion and what are its characteristics?
Artaud defines theater as an illusion that cannot be located in reality and therefore a gratuitousness that cannot help but disappear. In particular, the fact that theater is a place where impossible seems possible and is separated from reality, that is, appears as a place that can be trusted in itself, is argued as a condition for establishing the Theater of Cruelty. However, this claim seems to conflict with Artaud's criticism of text-centered and representational theater, and his emphasis on the sensuous expressions and audience relations that fill the concrete area of the stage. In existing studies, even when it was acknowledged that Artaud presupposes the distinction between theater and reality, such arguments were understood as pursuing artistic autonomy or ritual space based on exploration of the essence of theater. Therefore there hasn’t been enough discussion regarding illusion. To explain these contradictions, this paper begins with a critical analysis of the play's fictionality.
The fact that Artaud's claims are interpreted from the theatrical practices of later generations that he influenced overlooks the core characteristics of the Theater of Cruelty. This is because such approach places the analysis under the influence of tendencies arising from the context in which the concept of presence in theater was developed. In general, fiction in theater was associated with the production of mimetic illusions. Therefore, as theatrical practices that claim that theater does not reproduce external objects but can have existence and value in itself arise, the idea of fiction came into conflict with the idea of ‘presence’ which emphasized the essence and self-existence of theater generated from the fact that it takes place here and now.
On the other hand, this study focuses on the possibility that the tendency to oppose fiction to presence and regard the latter as truth continues the long tradition of Western theater. Such tradition has defined theatrical productions as unreal and demanded that they be justified in relation to reality. It was noted that theater has been the target of criticism since ancient times because it may not faithfully correspond to immutable truths, correct values, or resemblance to reality when it refers to fictional objects that are absent. In order to deal with such 'discrepancies,' various theatrical rules have been developed Rules have been developed. Therefore, despite the different directions of its practice, theater can be characterized by concepts of presence that counteract fictional inconsistencies. In particular, theatrical practices following avant-garde reject the problems that arise when theater expresses objects other than itself and develop a separate concept of performance.
Then, the Theater of Cruelty's insistence on theatrical illusion and rejection of the dichotomy between reality and fiction are original in that they escape from the long standing rejection of fiction in Western theater. In particular, this study focused on the fact that the characteristics of fiction arising from the characteristics of theatrical medium, namely discrepancies, portray ‘doubleness’ that rejects the clear dichotomy with reality and expands the range of possibilities. This doubleness is based on the characteristic that the discrepancy between the phenomenal existence of matter and what it represents cannot be completely resolved, because theater always communicates through clear material reality, regardless of what it expresses. Such 'limitations' of theater not only prevent the occurrence of complete imitation or illusion in realistic plays, but also lead to the ironic result that modern theater practices reject the very concept of theater related to fiction in order to acquire autonomous value. However, this corresponds to the fact that not only Artaud did not presuppose a confrontation with fiction, but also insisted on using means of concealing things instead of habitually recognizing them objectively. Such arguments indicate the fictional process of expressing objects differently, using presence. Artaud even insisted on reviving fiction as a ‘universally ignored value’ of theater.
Therefore, in order to explain the Theater of Cruelty, it is necessary to overcome the dichotomy between reality and fiction and understand theatrical experience from fictional doubleness. According to this, since theater is a place where the real and unreal are mixed, and because the objects in the play are in a state of becoming something else, presence cannot be identified with a stable ‘here and now', and cannot fix on what is present. For Artaud, such fictional doubleness of theater is a way to raise fundamental doubts about reality and enable the experience of an invisible world. Therefore it is closely related to the experience of fiction that reminds people of absence through reality. This effect is the basis for the possibility of overthrowing reality advocated by the Theater of Cruelty, that is, theatrical effects likened to crisis or plague.
Furthermore, in order to examine the specific aspects of Theater of Cruelty that operates in its relationship with fiction, this study argues that the state of existence of true theater as argued by Artaud can be defined as ‘fictional presence.’ ‘Fictional presence' is a concept taken from Cormac Power's ’fictional mode of presence’, and it focuses on the fact that existing phenomena are created from the overlap of reality and fiction in theater. Therefore it can be regarded as an expression that questions the confrontational relationship that may exist between fiction and presence. In particular, this concept allows us to see that the relationship with fiction does not weaken existence, but can create a separate and fluid aspect of existence that is distinct from realistic context. Artaud's claims suggest concepts related to distancing from reality, forming unusual relationships, and personal denial for the emergence of this fictional presence, that is, theater as a direct illusion. These concepts argue for new relationships so that the reality of theater can be transformed into signs that points to something absent or invisible, and they use aspects related to theatrical fiction, such as pretence, acting, and fascination. In particular, ‘Double’, which refers to the unique language of theater pursued by Artaud, generates attention on what is absent through the deconstruction of reality. Accordingly, the play re-forms the relationship between what exists and what does not exist or between the virtuality of what is possible and what exists through materialization. Such processes can be understood as reinterpreting reality through fictional doubleness.
In this way, fictional presence indicates that what is staged in Theater of Cruelty is the deconstruction and transformation of reality itself. The elements revealed on stage through fiction are real, but they make reality more holistic and dangerous by making consistent understanding of reality difficult. The Theater of Cruelty focuses on this possibility of theater as a fictional art and can be understood as an attempt to consider the true meaning of fiction from its relationship with reality. Such theatrical fiction generate questions on reality because it arises from reality and creates contradictions like an infectious disease which comes out of its dormancy, and through this theater acts as a ‘crisis’. In particular, this effect arises from characteristics that were previously considered as limitations of theater, which is that theater use reality to point to non-reality that is different from it. In this way, Theater of Cruelty, which acknowledges the characteristics that were considered limitations of theater as their natural possibilities and show the opposite direction to theatrical tendencies that focuses on reality or clear, unified projections, makes research on theatrical medium as fiction, which has not been sufficiently discussed up to now, possible.
Keywords : Antonin Artaud, Theater of Cruelty, fiction, presence, doubleness, virtual
This study aims to explore the critical approach toward media in contemporary dance, which avoids conventional understanding of dance and artistic media. I reviewed choreographic concepts of contemporary dance as an apparatus in order to understand its debates concerning media, and discuss the matter of its ambiguous boundaries and expansion through the concept of intermediality. The idea of performance and dance with its ephemeral nature and media being used to preserve it, has constituted a conventional understanding of its temporality. However in contemporary dance, the archive expresses the request for extended temporality that enables the simultaneous existence of what is remaining, what is captured, and what is progressing in the performance. In addition, these archives expand into living spaces so that performances can lead to theoretical, educational, or political discourses, and functions as a mediating space where heterogeneous entities such as art, virtual reality, and real life meet. Moreover through this study, I wish to illuminate the expanded understanding of media in contemporary choreography as a criticism on previous media conventions, by introducing certain examples of autobiographical performance pieces in which the performer tells his or her own story. These works show the blurred boundaries among verbal languages, documents, and corporeal performance. They also bring participants in communication with performers, who become an physical archive of memories and experiences, and roam the ambiguous space inbetween reality and arts. Accordingly, an autobiographical performance creates an intermediality that allows the body-archive to experience and construct the virtual identity of the body in a fragmented manner.
Keywords: Choreography, Archive, Contemporary Dance, Performativity, Body, Intermediality