Mind the Gap. Theater Spaces/Media Spaces

What is »space«? Like the concept of »time« the idea and perception of space are culturally coded to a high degree, i.e. assigned different meanings. There is hardly a media that reflects this in more variant facettes than the theater: religious, philosophical, architectural, and technical-historical influences have, since antiquity, shaped the spaces and kinds of theater. What we generally understand by stage—the peep show that arose from Renaissance theater and its buildings—is thus merely one variant among many. Already the theater reformists of historical avant-garde theater, such as Adolphe Appia, directed their experiments against the common theater of illusion; yet it took until the 1960s to effectuate a »performative change« (Erika Fischer-Lichte): under the postulate of an »un-bordering of the arts« artists began to open up new spaces outside of the theater (evironmental theatre, site-specific performance, among others). The two-day symposium Mind the Gap presents research in the field of contemporary scenography: at the ZKM Media Theater, renown scholars and artists involved in German-speaking theater will introduce their positions and work; the lectures, panels and theater »inserts« (»performed spaces«) of the Berlin research group »Cultures of the Performative« offer the building blocks for systematization. A further element of the event is the mobile KIOSK für nützliches Wissen / KIOSK for useful information by Hannah Hurtzig / Tulip House at the open courtyard of the HfG (architecture and and design of the KIOSK: Stephen Craig). Friday 19 November 8 p.m., Performance in the open courtyard of the HfG. »Midnight Dream Theater« on the island Providencia/Columbia.

An event organized by ZKM and HfG Karlsruhe/Department of Scenography, in cooperation with the special research project »Cultures of the Performative« [FU Berlin] and the HfBK-Hochschule für Bildende Künste [University of Fine Arts] Dresden, Department of Set and Costume Design/theater studies.

Concept/ organisation: Birgit Wiens, HfBK Dresden,
Gesa Mueller von der Haegen, HfG Karlsruhe.

Speakers: Richard Beacham - Christa Brüstle - Marc Glöde - Barbara Gronau Nico Huempel - Hannah Hurtzig - Stefan Kaegi - Markus Kissling - Andrea Moses - Jan Pappelbaum - Jens Roselt - Helmar Schramm - Nicolas Stemann - Michael Thalheimer - Franz Wille