Drawing : Drawing as theatre

Karina Smigla-Bobinski – ADA, 2010, sphere, helium, charcoal, installation view

One way you can look at certain types of drawing practices is to consider them as theatre. Theatre requires the activation of a space in such a way that an audience can experience a physically contained or constrained series of events, that are orchestrated to communicate particular ideas. In the case of Karina Smigla-Bobinski's drawing installation ADA for example, a box like room space is activated by a floating sphere with short spikes of charcoal attached to its surface. People are also allowed into this space as actants* and as they push or hit the plastic sphere it bounces around the space and 'draws' on all four walls, as well as the ceiling and floor.

The ball is covered with 300 charcoal sticks with a spacing of 10 inches from one another.

ADA works very like a contact improvised dance performance, the audience being able to step in and out of what could be called an 'action drawing'.

Performance is though usually associated with the theatre and the space of the theatre is often associated with perspective as a drawing mechanism. For instance perspective scenery is a scene design technique that represents three-dimensional space on a flat surface, creating an illusion of reality and an impression of distance. In effect perspective and theatre become fused into a new form, a form that like both theatre and perspective drawing creates an illusionary space for action to take place within it. This fusion was made possible by the introduction of the proscenium theatre. This involved the use of an arch, (sometimes curved and sometimes rectangular) which served as the frame within which the audience observed from a more or less unified angle the events taking place upon the stage. This 'frame' and separation of the audience from the performance, was in effect almost the same as one point perspective.

The idea of the proscenium arch can be thought of as a social construct that divides the actors and their stage-world from the audience. In fact the seat that would be the perfect point from which to view the action, was often both the place where the person most powerful present would be seated and the spot opposite the controlling perspectival vanishing point. The curtain usually comes down just behind the proscenium arch, both hiding the stage from view when scenery is changed, but also reminding the audience of the reality that surrounds the illusion.

The stage curtain was not introduced until the 17th century. When it was drawn back the plane it moved through was what became known as the imaginary forth wall. This was like a plane of glass through which the audience experienced the illusion of watching events happen from a distance. A situation that physically reinforced the fact that you could not intervene in what was happening, but God like, you could see what was going on, and therefore you were emotionally engaged, even though unlike the Gods you had no power to intervene.

One point perspective

Proscenium Arch, Pantheon Theatre, London 1815

Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza

Because this type of stage fits the mathematical model of perspective, it also becomes very easy to use the various tricks of anamorphic perspective drawing to create further illusions. Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza exhibits an early use of anamorphic perspective, the illusion that the street is much longer than it really is, is created by a forced perspective. Forced perspective is a technique perhaps seen at its clearest in the Palazzo Spada, as created by Francesco Borromini. He designed a barrel-vaulted colonnade that looks much longer than it is by making the two sides of the colonnade converge and by reducing the height of the columns as they recede.

Palazzo Spada: colonnade: Francesco Borromini

Bramante’s Santa Maria presso San Satiro in Milan is another example of forced perspective, one that you can see easily when a photograph is taken from any point of view away from the one determined by the central vanishing point.

Bramante: Santa Maria presso San Satiro in Milan

Bramante's perspective illusion choir viewed from the west transept.

In many ways paintings and drawings from this time could be regarded as silent theatre. Perspective created the illusion of a space constructed for action that sat behind a picture frame and the fact that theatres themselves were also now constructed using similar principles, for a while brought the two disciplines into close proximity, but there were other issues that also fused the two ideas.

In painting there had been a long tradition of gesture as a way to indicate meaning.

Representations of hand positions or gestures in portraits and paintings were some of the most effective ways of conveying messages. For instance the gesture of the blessing hand shapes the letters IC XC, an abbreviation for the Greek words Jesus (IHCOYC) Christ (XPICTOC) which includes the first and last letter of each word. Therefore the hand that blesses reproduces, with gestures, the Name of Jesus.

The blessing gesture

The language of gesture in Italy was firmly established and went all the way back to Roman times, when hand gestures associated with oratory were established and which were still understood in the 15th century.

In the theatre, the Commedia Dell’Arte had flourished throughout Europe from the 16th through to the 18th century. (Our Punch and Judy is an English spinoff of this form of theatre). This was a theatre of improvisation which was undertaken within a framework of clearly established roles, with associated masks and stock situations. The professional players who specialised in these roles developed comic acting techniques that could be transported throughout Europe because they didn't rely on any one specific European language. The language used within a Commedia Dell’Arte improvisation was grammelot (nonsense and gibberish). Any audience member could follow the exaggerated physicality and the tone and pace of the voice. The languages of gesture, especially hand gestures, were vital to the construction of the required effect. Commedia Dell’Arte was a theatre style that heavily relied on physicality to build character. This acting style developed the concept of a leading body part (the body part that goes in a direction and the rest of the body follows). This incorporated the concept of centre of gravity in an actor’s body; for instance a bottom fixation could be contrasted to a posture centred on a nose. Imagine an earthy character constantly waggling a padded fat bottom always in confrontation with another character who always had their nose stuck up into the air in an attitude of constant aloofness. Add to this fast signing with the hands, especially with rude signs, as in a very vulgar version of present day British sign language and you can get an idea of the art form.

Watteau: The Italian comedians

It is Watteau that brings the two traditions of visual art and theatre together again. I have posted about him recently because Watteau as a painter was someone who could deal with the visualisation of a society in a transitional state and I strongly believe that our society is also in a similar position. The people he depicts are set into liminal spaces and the space of the theatre is typical, as it sits between worlds. It is on the one hand 'real' as the actors and the stage are physically clearly in existence, but on the other hand it is an imaginary space, one that can be used to literally play out ideas. The relationships between people in Watteau's paintings and drawings are suggested by small gestures and body postures and you get the feeling that people's minds are suffused by a never ending series of unresolved actions and unfulfilled desires. They act out their lives but perhaps have forgotten their lines. You sense that the people in his paintings have lost direction, that they are unsure about the roles they should be playing and in compensation they turn to the Commedia Dell’Arte players who all know their roles and play them to perfection, day in, day out, to audiences across Europe.

Deutschlands Geisteshelden: Anselm Kiefer 1988

Because of this understanding of theatre type perspectives being ones within which you can play out an idea, artists still use these one point perspective stage like spaces. Kiefer's large charcoal drawing on canvas, 'Deutschlands Geisteshelden' positions the viewer as if they are looking through a proscenium arch at a stage. Burning torches line the walls of a space that is empty except for the names of the actors scrawled above the fast receding, single point perspective floor. These actors (or actants) are German cultural heroes; Joseph Beuys, Arnold Böcklin, Adalbert Stifter, Caspar David Friedrich, Theodor Storm, and others. These are the actors of a painful history play and Kiefer sets out his image as a stage, so that he can make them perform as ghosts of their former selves. All are dead, Joseph Beuys, his mentor dying in 1986, just before Kiefer began drawing out the image. Kiefer I'm sure was well aware of the relationship between images made using one point perspective and the theatre, he is a well read artist and he cites many literary figures as past influences on German culture. The image as a stage whereby ideas are acted out continues to be a powerful idea and as more performative ways of working have emerged out of traditional drawing practices, I would suggest that the fusion of drawing and theatre is something that will become more and more the norm.

So is Karina Smigla-Bobinski's 'ADA' part of this tradition? I would suggest it is. The large sphere is playing out the role of a performer, or actant, alongside the people that have to enter the space to move it around. Without the people, the sphere would just sit there. The resultant drawings, like in all 'draw to perform' works, are traces or recordings of the event. ADA is also in form very like the virus that has invaded our lives over the last few years, a fact that begins to give extra traction to the non-human character Smigla-Bobinski has invented. I have for some years now been interested in animism and I would argue that ADA operates within an animist framework, the sphere becomes an actant in the same way that any objects in an animist framework can become part of the interconnectedness of the life system that someone belongs to. The term 'actant' is itself a reminder that within an animist world we are all actors; landscapes, people, plants, rocks, animals and the weather and that perhaps by returning to these types of very ancient traditions, we might find that we begin to regain a much older and more productive relationship with all the things that surround us, but which we have for many years ignored because they were not other humans.

* Actant: Is a term used in literary theory and is a way of referring to a person, creature or object playing any of a set of active roles in a narrative or event. This means that in this case the people who enter the space defined by 'ADA' are as much a part of the event as the sphere. By using this term you can suggest that both the actors and the scenery are acting out vital roles within a play. It is also a term that helps us think about how in 'object orientated ontology' humans and other things can be considered as having an equal footing on the bill of life.