Contemporary theatre is more and more frequently using cinema as well as the emerging new technologies; incorporating them in it as a part of its set design and stage direction.
While artists are researching the relationship between theatre and cinema, a new form of art emerges and is widely embraced and presented in the European theatres, mainly through the set design transformed gradually into a new kind of scenography. In many ways, new media did promise a new holistic art, as Randall Packer and Ken Jordan claimed early on the new millennial, and it is currently presented on stage as a new multi sensory spectacle (as the French would call it) that incorporates all, or almost all, forms of art.
In this meeting of arts and technology, this new scenography, mentioned above, needs to be explored: what are the new requirements for a set designer? Are there any new rules that should apply in this new form of set design art? Can we attempt a categorisation / classification needed to understand this new scenography?
This paper aspires to present the early work of a long process of an overview of the European spectacles that incorporate the new technologies in such way that a new form of art is created; this work will thus show us the characteristics of each category.
The main axe for this categorisation is, of course, the dramaturgy. From the way each story is narrated, three categories of scenography become clear to us: the one that supports the narration, the one that is independent of any other narration, and the one that is by itself the narration.
These three categories are analysed and researched through a set of examples illustrating each category.
Other factors that are to be taken into consideration are the aesthetics of art, the difference between the process of the artist and the final product, and how having the one or the other as a goal can change the outcome, the evolution of technology making things unimaginable in the past, possible for the contemporary artists, and last but not least the ethics to be considered.
The main questions we are going to attempt to address are the following : Does technology enhance the experience of the spectator? What does this new art provide us with and what are the risks of creating a multi sensory spectacle that resembles our screens?
Paraskevi Bokovou is a set and costume designer based at Thessaloniki, that has worked in feature and short films, television and theatre.
Since June 2022, she is a Ph.D candidate at the Film Department, of School of Fine Arts of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; under the direction of Dr. Nefeli Dimitriadi, experimenting with the emerging new media and cinematic practices on and off stage through a set designer’s perspective.
She was part of the team of Dr. Nefeli Dimitriadi, that presented the paper «Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Location-based narratives and user participation as means for creating engaging Extended Reality experiences» for the 4th International Conference Digital culture and audiovisual challenges, March 2022.
She has a masters degree in film studies from the School of Fine Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where she was a student of Ioulia Stauridou, and another masters degree in theatre from the University Paris 8 Vincennes – Saint-Denis, subject Scènes du Monde, histoire et création, where her director for her research regarding the use of color and form in postdramatic theatre was Dr. Érica Magris.
She has worked in various feature and short films, in theatrical productions and in television as an art director, a costume designer and an assistant to the art department; she has also worked in several music videos and commercials as the art director mainly.
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