Street Scenes. Transformations of the Street as a Theatrical Reference Space

The project examines historical and contemporary connections between (European) theater forms and the space of the street. Since the early modern period, if not before, numerous scenic developments have been based on milieus, forms of transportation or the mediality of the street itself. The late 19th and early 20th centuries were characterized by an enormous dynamization of street traffic, which caused the (theater) avant-gardes to fall into a veritable “street frenzy” (Siegfried Kracauer), as well as the innovation of the moving image, the accompanying changes in the central perspective dispositive and the emergence of a “media theater” (Andreas Kotte).

The starting point is the idea of a “double legacy” of the street, which has made itself felt with astonishing persistence (not only) in the history of theater: On the one hand, the street has always served as a major milieu for vagabonds, minstrels, tramps, beatniks etc., i.e. for idle, nomadic, and diasporic figures. It is therefore particularly associated with theater forms that play with the fragility and unstable nature of attributions of identity, such as the early modern Commedia and its continuations. On the other hand, the street has also functioned as a medial and material carrier of European expansionist movements which lead to the world’s visualization and colonization, and turned it into a modern globe. This brings traditions of the centrally oriented street into focus: the street leading to the horizon or beyond it, its logistical functions or its use as a military road. But to what extent is this complex intertwined with the history of central perspective theater spaces, i.e. with the picture stage that has spread from Italy to Europe since the Quattrocento? How were the two conflicting “legacies” reflected in theatrical street references and in different historical constellations?

The project’s dual historical focus makes it possible to draw comparative connections to a present that, in the face of digitalization, is itself undergoing significant media-historical shifts. The project builds on the thesis that, in the late 20th century, the functions of the street as a “carrier of information” shifted increasingly to telecommunication and eventually digital media. But how does the theatrical reference space of the street change when, for example, algorithmic control systems, along with movements in the street space, also transform its imagery? What becomes of the street in the era of smart streets, as traditional analog milieus are technologically surpassed and perhaps even rendered unrecognizable?

Fig. above: © D M Nagu, from the series Paper Works.