Illusionistic Environments – Digital Spaces

Contemporary designs create new performance structures in terms of directing and acting on the stage with the assistance of the technology. We have moved far from physical props and furniture in order to create the environment. “Soft sets” Aronson 2008: 27, digital pictures, virtual spaces and human’s bodies create the main illusionistic environment, which absorbs the performer and his audience. We have moved away from Giacomo Balla’s designs, where lights replaced performers’ bodies. Scenography has become a setting that can be created by a bodysuit or an exoskeleton controlled by the spectator via a computer interface. Digital scenography builds new worlds, strongly influenced and affected by the technological advancement. Telematic sets, Robotic and Cyborg Theatres create a new era in the performance art. In this paper we argue that a contemporary scenography has the power to create a unique narrative journey in space and time with the assistance of technology. We claim that moving images, digital spaces and mixed media environments may be used to create illusions and construct unpredictable worlds distant from any realistic representation of life. A digital environment becomes a medium, which can set new rules for the performance art. Recent technologies have encouraged strongly the fusion of direction and scenography by creating not only a new visual notion in the theatre, but also unique experiences for the spectator and the performer as well.