Figure 16.1 Infobox, Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, courtesy of Mario Kasper.
Spatial Practices in Contemporary Performances
Jens Roselt
Translation by Michael Breslin
and Saskya Iris Jain
Without space, theatre cannot be made, perceived, or even conceived of. The aesthetic of theatre is determined by the spaces in which theatre takes place, and by the spaces produced by theatrical action. The significance of space led the theatre scholar Max Herrmann to assert in 1931 that “the performing arts are spatial arts,” and its recognition turns the specific mediality of theatre into a central component of the art of staging.1 The simultaneous presence of performers and spectators, which marks it as a cultural performance, generates and shapes specific forms of attention.2 Theatrical space is therefore necessarily also an intermediary space that stems from the interplay of stage and audience and enables particular experiences for the performance's participants. It was with this in mind that Herrmann described the “theatrical experience of space,” which actors and spectators, as well as directors and playwrights are able to create: “The space intended by theatre is both ⋯ an artistic space that is brought about by a fairly substantial internal transformation of real space, and an experience by which the theatre space is transformed into a space of another nature.”3
However, the production of spatial experiences is by no means a prerogative of the theatre. It is, rather, an aesthetic practice that occurs in a variety of media of both everyday culture and the arts, and which the theatre can take up, use, change, or alienate. In such instances, the everyday economy of attention encounters a theatrical aesthetic of perception.4
One could, for example, point to a recent trend that has seen specific economic locations—places of work, in the literal sense—attract or provoke a form of interest and attention which might well arouse the envy of certain theatre actors or directors. I am referring to construction sites (Baustellen), transformed into show sites (Schaustellen) and accessible to weekend visitors or opened up to guided tours. Of course, this phenomenon is not exclusive to any one city. In Berlin, for example, exhibition architects were invited to set up elaborate pavilions or specially designed information platforms on numerous large construction sites, such as the Hauptbahnhof, the new central train station, Schoenefeld airport, and, several years earlier, the Holocaust Memorial. The pavilions and platforms, equipped with multimedia devices that provided information about the past, present, and future of the site, were torn down upon completion of the project. A striking example was provided by the multistory Info Box, which the architecture fi rm Schneider & Schumacher erected on Berlin's Leipziger Platz between 1995 and 2001 in order to present the Potsdamer Platz building project as a type of site-specific exhibition. Attention generated in this way, which is also knowingly produced and controlled by the client, is different, I argue, from the attention that later characterizes a completed building or object.
This applies not only to construction sites on which something is built, but also to those from which something disappears—as demonstrated by the hordes of tourists who on a daily basis followed the demolition of Berlin's Palace of the Republic (Palast der Republik). From a performative perspective, it is clear that the aesthetic dimension of a construction site is dependent not on the emergence of an impressive aesthetic object or a remarkable building, but on the transformation of a space, over the course of which the past, present, and future heterotopically intertwine, and for which perception, memory, and imagination play a central role.5 While they might employ vast quantities of quick-setting cement, construction sites are, just like theatre performances, transitory and, upon completion, lost forever.
This aesthetic dimension of construction sites has, of course, been recognized and used by artists for some time now—the choreography of
Figure 16.1 Infobox, Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, courtesy of Mario Kasper.
crane ballets is one of the more common examples. Yet, the various strategies devised to capture the imagination on the Schlossplatz in central Berlin reveal that it is not only public places and constructions, but also their transformation and development processes, that can be purposefully steered. As early as 1993, advocates of the Schloss's reconstruction drew attention to themselves and their campaign by raising scaf olding around the rotting Palace of the Republic featuring a trompe l'oeil façade of the former city Schloss. Following the asbestos abatement, which lasted several years, the temporary steel framework served as a space for art and theatre. And while a look at the building's subsequent demolition became an obligatory part of almost all city tours, the opposite end of the site was occupied by the temporary art gallery of the architects Krischanitz ZT. But, as the reconstruction of the Schloss draws closer, it seems that the turf laid down on the grounds where the palace once stood will barely have the time to take root. Although the planned starting date has been regularly challenged or pushed back, the Humboldt-Box, a five story 3,000-square-meter structure, already of ers a preview of the future Schloss and the Humboldt Forum.6
The temporal limitations placed on spatial constellations are not, however, merely conditioned by construction or demolition dates, but also become an independent curatorial principle. Thus, the Initiative temporäre Kunst e.V. (Initiative for Temporary Art), founded in 2008, turned a service area on the Berliner AVUS (a public road previously used as a motor racing circuit) into a short-lived exhibition space. Also in 2008, an empty apartment building located at Torstraβe 166 in central Berlin was, shortly before being renovated, transformed into a three-week House of Imagination, sponsored by the DIY (do-it-yourself) retail chain Hornbach.7 This phenomenon can be likened to so-called temporary showrooms, which refers to stores dedicated to a specific brand and specially converted only for a limited time.
The construction site, however, brings into focus an idiosyncratic coupling of space and time that is usually a feature of the theatre. For, the practices previously described show that the construction site possesses both a spatial and a temporal dimension. And it is this temporal limitation that appears to make specific forms of ephemeral experience possible. I do not mean to claim that construction sites are theatres, but that there is something distinctly theatrical about these processes. This is also clearly demonstrated by the following example of spatial experience—more specifically, a liminal experience—which took place in 2005 in front of the hoarding that surrounded Peter Eisenman's Holocaust Memorial during its construction.
It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was not alone loitering around the hoarding. The fi eld of stelae, due to open a few weeks later, could already be clearly discerned. From the architect's perspective, however, one central element was still missing: the visitors wandering among the stelae, their movements bringing into play the performative dimension of the ostensibly static monumental stelae. The mood was relatively relaxed. Even without being steeped in any sort of memorial atmosphere, one could already imagine what it might be like to amble through the fi eld of stelae. Just then, a group of American tourists arrived on bicycles. Their young American guide parked himself in front of the hoarding and began to relate not just the concept behind the memorial but also the lengthy, controversial prehistory of the site, beginning his exposé with the tasteless observation: “When the Germans do something, they do it properly.”
I was not the only one to notice this young man. He rapidly attracted the attention of the other onlookers. Without a doubt, he had already spent the entire day leading this group of American tourists, who had barely ever been in such direct contact with Prussian or German history, through the streets of Berlin. He was eager that his explanations be as clear, entertaining, and stimulating as possible. What might have been fi tting in front of the Was-serklops (water meatball) fountain by the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church on Breitscheidplatz here seemed strangely out of place and inappropriate. With the loud, over-articulated voice of a holiday rep, he launched into his promotional monologue: “Okay, guys! This is the Holocaust Memorial.” Only as he said this did it become apparent how silent most of the onlookers had been. My unease shows that space is immediately charged with heterogeneous conceptions, expectations, norms, and conventions. Maybe it was clear to many of those present how one ought to behave at a memorial site. Yet , pre c i s ely what shou ld b e done or p er m it t ed i n t h i s “l i m i na l phase” of the construction site was, it appeared, still negotiable.8 At this point, I was no longer the only person listening in. And, clearly, I was not the only one who considered his performance inappropriate. Finally, a woman who was not part of the group of bicycle tourists spoke out. She interrupted the man to suggest that he concentrate on explaining to his American audience not how Germans build a memorial but what George Bush was up to in Iraq. The guide, in a bid to resolve the awkward situation, told the woman that he would be happy to discuss the matter but first wished to complete his statement. The woman was having none of it. She continued to prof er a series of rude remarks and demanded that he shut his mouth. Probably to avoid an escalation of the already tense situation, the man fell silent and moved on quietly with his group in tow.
I have unpleasant memories of this episode. This was not merely due to the foreign guide or the uninvited heckler. My own conduct, that of the silent intellectual (who is happier to give a lecture on the subject than to intervene), was also a contributing factor. Then again, what more could we today ask of a memorial than to provoke such a discourse even before it is open to the public? Would it not be wholly tasteless to expect people to walk away “content” from a Holocaust memorial?
This unease resurfaced again during the public debate about the memorial a few days before its inauguration. For, rather suddenly, it started to dawn on those responsible that not only would living people soon access the space, but their behavior would play a part in shaping it. How might one control or regulate this? How should dogs be treated, given that they were likely to act differently than the tourists toward the stelae? What, if anything, was to be done about children playing hide and seek among the stelae? Since there was no question of fi ltering access to the site, it would be necessary to install a series of prohibitive signs or have guards patrol the area. Another problem was that some of the stelae were low enough to sit on. Is it appropriate to sit on a memorial? Although not a theatrical production, space can acquire certain traits of a performance and has the potential to become an event in that something can happen in it, with it, or through it, in the here and now, something that cannot be completely planned or repeated.9 Space is a vast geometrical precept, which structures behavior and movements within it. At the same time, this mechanism is tested, questioned, and expanded by its users. Spaces are places of encounter and therefore negotiable. And the corresponding processes of negotiation can be typical of performances. This is true also of the theatre, for which the spatial order is generally well established, nonetheless provoking different uses and applications. It is only over the course of a performance, as a product of an exchange, that the audience is constituted. This constitutive function of space has a political dimension, since the processes of negotiation between stage and audience are always capable of drawing, crossing, and blurring boundaries. Thus, the issue at hand is not so much to determine how one should act at a memorial site, but to investigate what kind of behavior is elicited by one's presence at a memorial. More generally, what ef ect do we have on spaces, and they on us? I would like to tackle this question with reference to two examples; neither stems from the theatre, yet both demonstrate how certain strategies can give space a performative character.10
The first example took place in a space that in itself provoked certain expectations and attitudes of reception. Visitors to the art gallery in which Tino Sehgal presented his work This objective of that object entered the room as they would an art exhibition and therefore frequently with corresponding expectations and attitudes of reception.11 The work was accessible during regular opening hours (11 a.m. until 6 p.m.), meaning the performance had no real beginning for which visitors had to arrive.
The exhibition space appeared empty to the observer: There were no hanging pictures or mounted sculptures, and there was no museum attendant to show the way or explain what rules had to be observed. The visitor could believe herself to be alone or, if she came with someone, turn questioningly to her companion. Access to the exhibition space was not regulated. There was no limit to how many could attend, nor was there a reception desk or an entrance fee. Even as visitors were still orienting themselves, they already became a part of the installation. Five people entered the room, one after the other, through different entrances. They came from different directions, walking backward and taking special care not to show observers their faces or the front of their bodies. Each of them took up position in the room, standing upright. Then, in choric unison, they pronounced the following sentence: “The objective of this work is to become the object of a discussion.” After a few seconds' interval, the phrase was repeated again, and again. The manner in which it was spoken varied increasingly. Initially, all one could hear was heavy breathing, rising progressively to a whisper; the people then spoke at a normal volume, before fi nally saying the sentence out very loudly, although never quite screaming. The pauses between each intervention became increasingly long. If, during one of these pauses, a visitor uttered an audible comment (for example, “Is this art?”), spoke to the actors (for example, “Why are you turning your back to me?”), turned to ask a companion (for example, “Shall we go?”), or called out to no one in particular (for example, “Shit!”), the words were seized upon by the performers and turned into the subject of a discussion between them. Yet, all the while, they avoided looking at one another or at the visitors. When the visitors' comments ceased, the work of art “died,” each of the performers slumping down, uttering the phrase only with broken voices until, fi nally, they lay in complete silence on the fl oor. The visitors could disrupt or alter this sequence at any moment. A remark could set the performers in motion again, bringing them to their feet and triggering an action. The performance could be brought to a conclusion either by the visitors or by the performers: the visitors by leaving the gallery; the performers with one of a number of interchangeable sentences: “So, no more comments? So, no more questions? Then—let's get down to business!” With these words they scuttled to opposite ends of the room and expressly looked the visitors straight in the eye for the first and last time.
The visitors could not avoid becoming participants in the performance. Even if they opted to leave the exhibition space as quickly as possible, their departure itself became a part of the unfolding work. Furthermore, the departed visitors could have had no way of knowing whether and how their disappearance would be commented upon or become a topic of discussion in absentia. It was not uncommon for visitors who had left the room to linger behind and gaze through the gallery windows to observe if and how the performance continued.
The gallery as a place of performance referred to the context of the fi ne arts. This reference was also apparent in the behavior of certain spectators who, to no avail, attempted to adopt the neutral and distanced position of a mere observer, positioning themselves at the periphery of the room. In contrast, the simultaneous presence of performers and spectators was characteristic of the theatre. On account of several elements—such as the protagonists' choreographed movements and choric sentences—the performance seemed rehearsed. But the precise way in which the space was divided and used could not have been planned in advance and was different from one performance to the next. This was because the observers chose what positions to occupy. They could stand at the edge or in the middle of the room. They were free to move and change places during the performance, to sit or lie down, and observe the performers or other spectators from different perspectives.
Each performance exhibited a different and always unique dramaturgy, one that was developed by the participants as it occurred. Some sequences ended after no more than a few seconds, when visitors to the room, catching sight of people standing around rather than pictures on the walls, sought an immediate escape. Others lasted perhaps twenty minutes, because the visitors actively intervened with comments that were seized upon in conversation, or because they just waited, watching the protagonists as they lay on the ground, without feeling compelled to leave the gallery. The boundary between the visitors and the performers became less clearly defi ned when participants began questioning who was actually observing whom. Some visitors sought to establish what rules were dictating the performance, trying out different ways of behaving and testing the boundaries that separated them from the performers. They frequently ventured, for example, to look the performers in the eye or force them into a corner. At the same time, the visitors could themselves have liminal experiences by scrutinizing their position as mere recipients and determining how they might acquire a role in proceedings. Their participation, however, did not begin with the discursive exchanges. The corporeal presence of the visitors was in itself an integral part of the performance. Their movements and positions in the room had a bearing on the behavior of the performers, who were obliged, for example, to shift to one side or follow their lead. Thus, every movement through the room was registered by the participants. From the moment the visitors entered the room, not participating ceased to be an option. Even a visitor seating herself discreetly and silently in a corner constituted a bodily action with possible consequences. Her silence, too, could have been interpreted as a comment and made into a subject of discussion. During subsequent conversations, it was not unusual for visitors to describe these situations as aggressive. But similarly uncomfortable situations befell the performers, who often could not know how many people were standing behind them, and were sometimes physically set upon by the observers. The work therefore repeatedly provoked forms of encounter, rapprochement, and detachment. These reciprocal relations were a way of sounding out and testing the power arrangements between participants. The dialogue and corporeal-spatial behavior were capable of generating balanced social situations, which remained temporary and fragile. Concern for oneself and for one's counterpart, and a common responsibility for the artwork, thus became a focal point of the work.
These categories are also relevant to the second example, even though the event took place not in the artistic space of a gallery or theatre but in the city space. Visitors to Call Cutta by the performance group Rimini Pro-tokoll were required to contact the theatre in advance to book a particular starting time. Every participant, they were told, would have to complete a walking tour through the city on their own. In the theatre's café, they were handed and shown how to operate a mobile phone and headset. At the prearranged time, each was to make his or her way outside the theatre and wait for a phone call.
The woman at the other end of the line introduced herself as a call center worker in Calcutta,12 and gave the first instructions: “Do you see the three fl agpoles to the right in front of the high-rise? Walk over to it!” Connected to one another in this way, the caller led her interlocutor acoustically by the hand. This moment marked the beginning of a one-and-a-half-hour tour past the Postbank's building and headquarters, through the remains of the Anhalter station, across busy courtyards, and over a U-Bahn rail line into the parking block and then the shopping mall of the Daimler Chrysler complex on Potsdamer Platz.
The contact between the spectator and the caller was initially based on the navigational instructions communicated from one to the other, and according to which the spectator oriented himself. The exchanges between them were guided by reciprocal questions and replies to ascertain the localization of the spectator (“Can you see the hole in the fence?” “Should I really go through it?”) and from which a form of narration emerged. The spectator was led to various locations, at which he discovered more or less hidden photographs, for example behind an office window, in a trash can, or on a pillar. The photos were historical, black-and-white images of people. The caller claimed that one of these was her grandfather, who had lived in Berlin in the 1940s and collaborated with the Nazis. Again and again, the tour led to parts of the city where traces of World War II bombing raids could still be seen. The spectator found remains of the walls of the former philharmonic in the sandpit of a residential complex in Kreuzberg, or discovered overgrown ruins hiding on the grounds of the former Anhalter train station.
Yet, alongside the navigation and the narration, an additional, more personal, dialogue took shape between the caller from Calcutta and the spectator in Berlin. Certain remarks by the caller, such as “You have a lovely voice” or “I trust you,” indicated that a degree of intimacy had set in, above and beyond the dramaturgical framework. Other seemingly spontaneous questions by the caller also contributed to this: “Could you fall in love over the phone?” or “Have you ever lied over the phone?” It was never quite obvious to what extent these types of questions followed a prepared script. In the background, one could hear the constant bustling and confused sounds of a professional call center.
It was the actions of the caller and the recipient that finally yielded and determined the concrete course taken by the performance. The conventional division of participants into spectators and performers became questionable, given that the supposed spectator carried out physical acts and, by refusing to answer certain questions or posing counter-questions, for example, was jointly responsible for how the dialogue evolved. He could also behave in a particular way to attract the attention of otherwise uninvolved passersby. Call Cutta dealt implicitly with the theme of honesty. Each of the participants remained free to believe or not whatever the woman from Calcutta chose to reveal about herself and her family. This concerned not just factual and historical information but also the entire setting. It was debatable, of course, whether the woman was in fact sitting in a call center in India or simply in the cafeteria of a Berlin theatre. The question of sincerity could also be applied to the acts and comments of the person receiving the call. Only he could know whether he had really accomplished the actions required of him, or whether he only claimed to have done so. But it was the personal relationship that the two interlocutors established over the course of their dialogue that brought the notion of sincerity most signifi cantly into play. The caller referred to her partner by his first name, without asking for permission. She also suggested by what name she wanted to be addressed. Only at a later stage did she reveal that the trust between them was such that she could now divulge her real name. Whether there was any truth in this, the other could not know. The call recipient could judge her admission of trust as being sincere or as part of a conversation strategy employed by skilled call center workers capable of selling almost anything over the phone. Maybe she was simply reading out a prefabricated speech, which had this dramaturgical moment of sincerity written into it. The element of sincerity was also inherent in the theme of concern for the other: Always before crossing a street, the caller advised her “companion” to be careful of the traffic.
The only markers the two interlocutors had of one another were their voices. It was not until the very end of the performance that a peculiar revelation was made. The call recipient was guided into the shopping mall on Potsdamer Platz and led to the shop window of a telephone provider. Upon arrival, he was asked to describe what he saw in the shop window. Before him stood a large television monitor. The image showed a call center and a young Indian woman, who waved to the camera and said: “Hello, that's me.” With this live transmission, the spectator could briefl y look the caller in the eye, and perhaps, for a matter of seconds, he was tempted to believe all she had told him. But this visual contact was a one-way street. The woman could not see the person observing her. She therefore requested that he take a photograph of himself using the mobile phone, for her to look at later. How sincere this was remained unclear. No sooner was the shutter released than the woman bid farewell with professional courtesy. After all, the next spectator was already in front of the theatre, waiting for her phone call.
The examples show how space can acquire a performative character when something happens between its visitors, users, and spectators that is partly strategically planned and controlled and partly emergent. As such, responsibility, concern, and sincerity—in other words, moral categories— thus become central aspects of aesthetic experience. But this participation is, at the same time, problematic, since the political nature of the corresponding procedures not only stems from the very fact that negotiation processes are taking place, but also always brings constellations and demonstrations of power into play. The feeling of helplessness and defenselessness cannot simply be ignored. One's own presence can also prove an extremely unpleasant experience, precisely because it is not possible to escape from the occurrence and sometimes even the space. Individual spatial experience is emphasized over the empat h ic communal experience. W hat is decisive for these spatial practices is not, therefore, that the spectators are (in the truest sense of the word) motivated to move through space, but that the sensitive processes of reciprocal rapprochement and detachment, in which one can always go too far and not far enough, are put to the test.
Only recently, a family, having just visited the Holocaust Memorial, walked by me with the words: “I can't understand what all the fuss was about.” The disappointment with which they described their experience was proof that the success of these processes cannot be guaranteed. It is also an indication that space can remain incomplete even when the hoardings have been taken down.
1. Max Herrmann, “Das theatralische Raumerlebnis,” in Jörg Dünne and Stephan Günzel (eds.), Raumtheorie: Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2006), 501–514.
2. Cf. Milton Singer, “Preface,” in Milton Singer (ed.), Traditional India: Structure and Change, (Philadelphia: American Folklore Society, 1959), xiii.
3. Herrmann, “Das theatralische Raumerlebnis,” 502.
4. Cf. Georg Franck, Ökonomie der Aufmerksamkeit (Munich: C. Hanser Ver-lag, 1998).
5. Cf. Michel Foucault, “different Spaces,” in James D. Faubion (ed.), The Essential Works of Foucault, vol. 2: Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology (New York: The New Press, 1998), 178–179.
6. Cf. www.humboldt-box.com (accessed February 23, 2012).
7. The project was curated by Ralf Schmerberg, Jaana Prüss, and Peter Weber.
8. For an investigation into Victor Turner's concept of liminality, see also the contribution to this volume by Benjamin Wihstutz.
9. The American video artist Marc Adelman has since developed a project that deals with this phenomenon. Based on the observation that, in a number of homosexual Internet forums, the Holocaust Memorial is a favored décor, he collects and catalogues online photographs of gays posing at the Holocaust Memorial. See www.marcadelman.com (accessed February 23, 2012).
10. I have taken both of the following examples from my doctoral thesis. Cf. Jens Roselt, Phänomenologie des Theaters (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2008).
11. The exhibition was on view from November 26, 2005, until January 14, 2006, in the Johnen Galerie in Berlin.
12. Now Kolkata.
Foucault, Michel, “different Spaces,” in James D. Faubion (ed.), The Essential Works of Foucault, vol. 2: Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology, New York: The New Press, 1998.
Franck, Georg, Ökonomie der Aufmerksamkeit, Munich: C. Hanser Verlag, 1998.
Herrmann, Max, “Das theatralische Raumerlebnis,” in Jörg Dünne and Stephan Günzel (eds.), Raumtheorie: Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie und Kulturwis-senschaften, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2006, 501–514.
Roselt, Jens, Phänomenologie des Theaters, Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2008.
Singer, Milton, “Preface,” in Milton Singer (ed.), Traditional India: Structure and Change, Philadelphia: American Folklore Society, 1959.
www.humboldt-box.com (accessed February 23, 2012).
www.marcadelman.com (accessed February 23, 2012).