Off the Pedestal, on the Stage: Animation and De-Animation in Art
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Off the Pedestal; On the Stage Animation and De-animation in Art and Theatre Aura Satz Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London PhD in Fine Art 2002 Abstract Whereas most genealogies of the puppet invariably conclude with robots and androids, this dissertation explores an alternative narrative. Here the inanimate object, first perceived either miraculously or idolatrously to come to life, is then observed as something that the live actor can aspire to, not necessarily the end-result of an ever evolving technological accomplishment. This research project examines a fundamental oscillation between the perception of inanimate images as coming alive, and the converse experience of human actors becoming inanimate images, whilst interrogating how this might articulate, substantiate or defy belief. Chapters i and 2 consider the literary documentation of objects miraculously coming to life, informed by the theology of incarnation and resurrection in Early Christianity, Byzantium and the Middle Ages. This includes examinations of icons, relics, incorrupt cadavers, and articulated crucifixes. Their use in ritual gradually leads on to the birth of a Christian theatre, its use of inanimate figures intermingling with live actors, and the practice of tableaux vivants, live human figures emulating the stillness of a statue. The remaining chapters focus on cultural phenomena that internalise the inanimate object’s immobility or strange movement quality. Chapter 3 studies secular tableaux vivants from the late eighteenth century onwards. Chapter 4 explores puppets-automata, with particular emphasis on Kempelen's Chess-player and the physical relation between object-manipulator and manipulated-object. The main emphasis is a choreographic one, on the ways in which live movement can translate into inanimate hardness, and how this form of movement can then be appropriated. In chapter 5 I relate puppets and prostheses using texts such as Kleist’s “On the Marionette Theatre”, Pinocchio, Coppelia, Bergson on mechanical movement, and Jentsch on the Uncanny. In the context of theatrical practise, chapter 6 examines key texts and theories on puppet-like acting, concentrating primarily on Edward Gordon Craig's concept of the Uber- marionette. Acknowledgements A massive thanks to my knowledgeable, supportive and inspiring supervisors Norman Bryson, Andrew Renton, and in particular Steven Connor [a later but invaluable addition}; Lis Rhodes for her precious and challenging stimulation of my practise; John Hilliard for the sharp dialogue in practical seminars; Joseph Koerner, for his feedback and with whom sharing time teaching in galleries was an enriching lesson; Kenneth Gross for being such an inspiration of a scholar; my wonderful David for his love and parallel animations; my dearest friend, collaborator and reader Ruth Blue for her close-reading and insight; my dear friend Phoebe von Held for her long-distance input and constant encouragement; my generous, encouraging and proud grandfather who always reads and comments on my texts; my father for his parallel writings, and my mother for her parallel images. Chapter i was, in its preliminary form, given as a ‘ventriloquised’ paper entitled “Icons, Relics, Incorrupt Cadavers; Resurrection and Animation in Early and Medieval Christianity” at the conference Inventions of Death, University of Warwick (June 2001}. I would like to thank Roger Starling for his support and suggestions regarding possible publication. Chapter 2 re-elaborates in part my paper entitled “Attacks on Automata,” given at the conference Iconoclasm: Contested Objects, Contested Terms, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (June 2001}. I am grateful for the all the feedback I received, and in particular the dialogues that ensued with Joseph Koerner, and the potential ‘ventriloquist act’ with Jon Wood. Chapter 5 was presented as part of the conference Puppet-Envy, Birkbeck, February 2002, and again, I am grateful for the exchange of ideas that emerged. It is also included in the forthcoming New Formations 46 (2002} and I have greatly benefited from the exchange in texts and interests with the co-editor Marquard Smith. Finally, I would like to thank the generous funding of the Graduate School Research Fund, the Convocation Trust and the Slade Projects Awards for enabling me to explore the theories of this dissertation in the flesh, on the stage (out of the library!}. Reflections on this crucial phase of my research can be found in the appendix. CONTENTS Abstract 2 Acknowledgments 3 Contents 4 List of Illustrations 5 Introduction 6 Chapter i: Icons, Relics, Incorrupt Cadavers 19 Participating Images, Real Presence, Incarnational Aesthetics Chapter 2: Articulated Crucifixes, Props, Performing Images 45 Theatrical Enactments, Transubstantiation and Quick-changes Chapter 3 Tableaux Vivants 68 Inside the Statue Chapter 4 Anatomical Models, Automata 97 Discerning the Mechanism Chapter 5 Puppets and Prosthesis 123 The Inanimate Incarnate Chapter 6 Puppet-envy and Armour The Actor Must Die 146 Conclusion 169 Appendix 173 Bibliography 186 List of Illustrations 1. Hand Prosthesis from the time of Ambroise Paré (1552}. Illustrated in La Nature, i( Repr. in Fragments for a History of the Human Body, vol.i, eds. M. Feher, R. Naddaff and N. Tazi (New York: Zone Books, 1989). 2. Statuary Hand Relic, Flemish, 13^’ century. V&A, London 3. Francisco de Goya, The Puppet, late iS*^ century. Prado Museum, Madrid. 4. Master of Saint Veronica, Saint Veronica with the Sudarium, c. 1420. National Gallery, London. 5. Reliquary Arm, Mosan, ca. 1230. Metropolitan Museum, New York. 6. Statuary relic of Sainte Foy, 9^* century and later. Sainte Foy, Conques. 7. Articulated crucifixes from Sankt an der Gian (left] and Grancia in Tessin (right], early 16^’ century. Diozesanmuseum, Klagenfurt, and Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zurich. 8. Venetian Transformative Puppet, mid 18^’ century. Museo Davia Bargellini, Bologna. 9. Greek statue of Daughter of Niobe, 5^' century. Rome, Terme. 10. Adult and child body casts created using Fiorelli’s technique, ca. i860. Pompeii. 11. Tableau Vivant representingThe Niobe Group, performed by members of the Boston School of Oratory under the direction of Miss Clara Power Edgerly, 1891. 12. Vanessa Beecroft, VB47, performed at the Peggy Guggenheim collection in Venice, Italy (June 2001]. 13. Neptune Riding a Mechanical Tortoise, early 17^' century. V&A, London. 14. Woodcut from Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica, 1532. Repr. Kenneth Gross, the Dream of the Moving Statue (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992]. 15. Vaucanson’s Duck, 1738. Repr. in Gaby Wood, Living Dolls (London: Faber and Faber, 2002] 16. Kempelen’s Turk as illustrated in Charles Gottlieb Windisch, Inanimate Reason; or a Circumstantial Account of that Astonishing Piece of Mechanism, M. de Kempelen’s Chess Player (London: S. Bladon, 1784]. 17. Kempelen’s Turk as illustrated in Joseph Friedrich du Racknitz,Ueber den Schachspieler des Herm von Kempelen und dessen Nachbildung (Leipzig and Dresden, 1789)- 18. Kempelen’s Turk as illustrated in Robert Willis, Attempt to Analyze the Chess Automaton of Mr. De Kempelen (London: J. Boothe, 1821]. 19. Prosthetic leg from the time of Ambroise Paré (1552]. Illustrated in La Nature, 1888. Repr. in Fragments for a History of the Human Body, vol.i, eds. M. Feher, R. Naddaff and N. Tazi (New York: Zone Books, 1989]. 20. Illustration from Collodi’s Pinocchio, 1883. Repr. in Carlo Collodi, The Adventures of Pinocchio: Story of a Puppet, trans. N.J. Perella (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985]. 21. Oskar Schlemmer, Gesture Dance with Schlemmer, Siedhoff and Kaminsky, 1926. Repr. in RoseLee Goldberg, Performance Art from Futurism to the Present (London: Thames and Hudson, 1996]. Introduction It begins sitting in a theatre. One man stands still. His movements so slow they appear to halt into inanimation, freeze into the motionless image of himself. Hardly a breath of air. At a distance, two men walk around in a circumference, attached as it were to the central figure. He rotates at an infinitely slow pace, imperceptible. They quicken at the periphery of the stage, like cogs in a mechanism. He is moved through them, they through him. The centre is still, whilst the extremities accelerate.' When a performer “de-animates” on stage, somehow transmits the impression of non-life, statue-like immobility, one has the impression that agency is conveyed through rhythm. It is as though one becomes aware of those puppeteers (or are they the puppets?] at the edge, the possibility that someone else’s rhythm has overtaken, possessed, entered the body of the non mover. If something or someone appears devoid of agency, the conjecture is that it has been displaced elsewhere. When an inanimate object, most familiar in its reliable inertia, resurrects into movement - be this a trickle of blood implying inner flow or a descent from the pedestal — an animating moving force is inferred within, without, or nearby. There is achoreographic principle underlying these assumptions. This thesis aims to explore the notions of agency and presence (or lack of the same) through objects or persons. I look at how presence can be conveyed through certain modes of movement and choreography, and furthermore, how perceptions of agency can structure the beliefs of the viewer. Being predominantly dictated by a visual/performance practice, which sometimes anticipates and other times results from the written research, my method