1 0 0 0 カメラが演じる/語るとき
This paper investigates <i>Snow</i>, a theatre piece written and directed by John Jesurun, which premiered in 2000. The piece has three unique features. The first is its theatrical space. It lacks a conventional auditorium but features a walled central area. The audience first enters the area and then watches the performance from there. This is linked to the second feature: the hiding, if not excluding, of the live performance. The central area is equipped with four screens above each wall, on which the audience watches the performance. Thus, although the actual performances are conducted just outside the walled area, it is not directly presented to the audience. The last feature is the “Virtual Actor.” This is, in fact, a camera, but due to its preset program, it can move as if of its own free will. This camera is not shown on the screens; however, the audience can sense its presence through a set of shots taken from the camera’s viewpoint.<br> This paper derives two main arguments from <i>Snow</i> by focusing on this Virtual Actor. The first is the displacement of the relation between human and machine. The quasi-autonomously operating camera, prompting a revision of the concept of the subject, questions the way in which we have separated the human, as a self-evidently autonomous being, from the machine, which is conceived as a non-autonomous being. Turning from a technical device such as the Virtual Actor to the story of <i>Snow</i>, which depicts the background of the contemporary media industry, we can find a similar question concerning the human-machine boundary. In one episode, people try to utilize “the tone and inflection of [one’s] voice” as material for encryption. In treating allegedly natural elements, such as “tone and inflection,” as a medium for the highly cultural operation of encryption, this episode suggests a cybernetic vision similar to the one discussed by Donna Haraway. In her view, through the reconception of organisms as coded texts, biology transforms into cryptology. We can thereby consider the living organism to be a communication device that has no fundamental difference from a machine.<br> The piece’s second argument lies in its metafictional inquiry. Narratology is based on the assumption that story space and discourse space are two distinct domains that must not be confused. This assumption, however, is challenged by the Virtual Actor. On the one hand, the Virtual Actor resides in discourse space, as it is a recording device designed for narration. At the same time, it is a character that naturally belongs to story space. The Virtual Actor’s double identity destabilizes the division between these two spaces.
1 0 0 0 OA カメラが演じる/語るとき
- 著者
- 江口 正登
- 出版者
- 西洋比較演劇研究会
- 雑誌
- 西洋比較演劇研究 (ISSN:13472720)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.13, no.2, pp.84-93, 2014-03-31 (Released:2014-04-03)
This paper investigates Snow, a theatre piece written and directed by John Jesurun, which premiered in 2000. The piece has three unique features. The first is its theatrical space. It lacks a conventional auditorium but features a walled central area. The audience first enters the area and then watches the performance from there. This is linked to the second feature: the hiding, if not excluding, of the live performance. The central area is equipped with four screens above each wall, on which the audience watches the performance. Thus, although the actual performances are conducted just outside the walled area, it is not directly presented to the audience. The last feature is the “Virtual Actor.” This is, in fact, a camera, but due to its preset program, it can move as if of its own free will. This camera is not shown on the screens; however, the audience can sense its presence through a set of shots taken from the camera’s viewpoint. This paper derives two main arguments from Snow by focusing on this Virtual Actor. The first is the displacement of the relation between human and machine. The quasi-autonomously operating camera, prompting a revision of the concept of the subject, questions the way in which we have separated the human, as a self-evidently autonomous being, from the machine, which is conceived as a non-autonomous being. Turning from a technical device such as the Virtual Actor to the story of Snow, which depicts the background of the contemporary media industry, we can find a similar question concerning the human-machine boundary. In one episode, people try to utilize “the tone and inflection of [one’s] voice” as material for encryption. In treating allegedly natural elements, such as “tone and inflection,” as a medium for the highly cultural operation of encryption, this episode suggests a cybernetic vision similar to the one discussed by Donna Haraway. In her view, through the reconception of organisms as coded texts, biology transforms into cryptology. We can thereby consider the living organism to be a communication device that has no fundamental difference from a machine. The piece’s second argument lies in its metafictional inquiry. Narratology is based on the assumption that story space and discourse space are two distinct domains that must not be confused. This assumption, however, is challenged by the Virtual Actor. On the one hand, the Virtual Actor resides in discourse space, as it is a recording device designed for narration. At the same time, it is a character that naturally belongs to story space. The Virtual Actor’s double identity destabilizes the division between these two spaces.
- 著者
- 江口 正登
- 出版者
- 日本演劇学会分科会西洋比較演劇研究会
- 雑誌
- 西洋比較演劇研究 (ISSN:13472720)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- no.10, pp.119-135, 2011
本研究の目的は、20世紀後半以降のパフォーミング・アーツにおけるメディアの利用の様態を包括的に検討し、その歴史的な変遷およびそこから見出される理論的な展望を明らかにすることである。しかし、研究を進めていく中で、こうしたメディアの問題が位置づけられるべき、より大きなパースペクティヴ自体をまず明確化することの重要性が強く意識されるようになった。それは、パフォーマンス研究という研究領域や、パフォーマンスという概念そのものが、我が国ではまだほとんど認知を得ておらず、研究者の数も極めて少ないという現状を認識してのことである。そこで、最終年度となる本年度も、アメリカ合衆国における芸術実践および知的言説の両面における「パフォーマンス的転回」について検討する作業に集中的に取り組んだ。特に、2012年8月後半からは、ニューヨーク大学に滞在して調査を進める機会を得た。本研究においては、資料の圧倒的大部分がアメリカ合衆国に蓄積されており、また、パフォーマンスの記録映像などは、国内からは入手はもとより参照も不可能な場合が多いため、この機会を十分に活用し、精力的な調査・収集を行っている。日本を離れていることもあり、本年度中にこれを研究成果としてまとめることはできなかったが、2013年8月の帰国以降、順次その成果を発表していく予定である。三年間の研究期間の総括として、上記のような経緯により、研究計画の重点に変更が起きたこと、すなわち、基礎的な調査としての性格が増し、それによって研究成果をまとめるのに多少の遅れが生じたことを述べておかなければならない。しかしその分、当初の研究目的を越えて、パフォーマンス研究の問題設定や手法を我が国の研究状況にどのように取り入れていくべきかということまで含めて、より生産的な基盤を確保することができたと考えている。これを引き継ぎ、今後も本研究を発展させていきたい。