RELATED TERMS: Alienation Effect – Verfremdungseffekt; Avant-Garde Movements; Epic Theatre – Brecht; Performance and Performativity; Theatre; Tragic Theatre – Aristotle; Antonin Artaud, 1896-1948, wrote the extraordinary theoretical book, Le Théâtre et son double (The Theatre and Its Double) in 1938. Influenced by Balinese dancers he saw in Paris in the early 1930s, Artaud imagined a Western theatreContinue reading “Theatre of Cruelty – Artaud”
Author Archives: aparsons474
Theatre and Drama Theory
RELATED TERMS: Epic theatre – Brecht; Deixis and Deictic Acts; Performance and Performativity; Theatre of Cruelty – Artaud; Tragic Theatre – Aristotle “What is the real thing? The question is an ideal subject for the stage, where the actual and the illusory constantly shadowbox.” (Clapp, 2024) The ‘as if’ and the ‘what if’ at theContinue reading “Theatre and Drama Theory”
Terraforming
RELATED TERMS: World-building The name of the architectural practice, Terreform, was derived from the combination of “terre”, meaning earth or soil, and “reform”, meaning to rebuild, reconstruct or recreate. The founders sought to differentiate their practice from that of “terraforming”. In planetary engineering, terraforming is a process of transforming an alien atmosphere to create a habitableContinue reading “Terraforming”
Structuralism
RELATED TERMS: Actantial model – Greimas; Narratology; Poststructuralism; Semiotics; Sculpture; “In short, the very manifesto of structuralism must be sought in the famous formula, eminently poetic and theatrical: to think is to cast a throw of the dice [penser, c’est e’mettre un coup de des].” Deleuze, G. (2004) ‘How do we recognise structuralism?’, in McMahon,Continue reading “Structuralism”
Storyworld
RELATED TERMS: Imaginary; Dasein; Ontological metalepsis; Diégèse and Diegesis; World; Lifeworld – Lebenswelt – Umwelt; Actant; Actor Network Theory; Methodology and Method “The founding story of the academic world is Socrates being a gadfly.” (Jonathan Haight, quoted in an interview with David Shariatmadari, 2025) Design practice involves the articulation of (interpreted) narrative world/worlds and (embodied)Continue reading “Storyworld”
Story (fabula) and Plot (sjuzet)
RELATED TERMS: In medias res; Genre; Tragic theatre – Aristotle; Defamiliarisation, Ostranenie or making strange; Narratology; Montage, Collage, Assemblage and Bricolage Design practices, it is argued, would do well to consider the notions of story, plot, chronology, de-chronologisation and teleology (end, goal or purpose), in the contexts of the narrative unfolding (intelligibility) and environmental navigationContinue reading “Story (fabula) and Plot (sjuzet)”
Speculative Realism
RELATED TERMS: New Materialism; Object-Oriented Ontology; Postanthropocentrism; Posthumanism; Poststructuralism The term speculative realism was coined by Graham Harman, Quentin Meillassoux, Ray Brassier and Iain Hamilton Grant as a title for a conference held at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2007. According to Avanessian and Malik (2016) speculative realists positioned themselves in distinction to both poststructuralismContinue reading “Speculative Realism”
Spectacle – Society of the Spectacle
RELATED TERMS: Everyday; Alienation; Situationist International; Historical materialism – Marxism; Critical Theory; Avant-Garde Movements; Alienation effect – Verfremdungseffekt A critical, creative and reflexive design practice could benefit from an understanding of the issues raised by Guy Debord in his book, Society of the Spectacle, published in 1967. It is a manifesto of 221 theses on capitalistContinue reading “Spectacle – Society of the Spectacle”
Sociology
RELATED TERMS: Actor-Network Theory; Anthropology; Ethnography; Ethnomethodology; Design practices would do well to be sociologically informed, particularly in relation to micro-sociological studies. The decades from the 1960s to the 1980s saw an increase in micro-social studies and methodology. The 1980s saw an attempt to bridge the gap between the more recent micro- studies and theContinue reading “Sociology”
Socially Engaged Art
RELATED TERMS: Modernism and avant-garde art practice Vid Simoniti points out that the work of politically committed artists has radically shifted since the mid-1990s. A new generation of artists has sought not just to represent social reality, but to change it, by blending art with activism, through social regeneration projects, and even by oursuing violentContinue reading “Socially Engaged Art”
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