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Articles

Volume 32, Number 2 (2011)

Théâtralite, médialité et sociomédialité: Fondements et enjeux de l'intermédialité théâtrale

Submitted
August 1, 2012
Published
2011-06-06

Abstract

Albeit the child of digital technology, intermediality is a phenomenon that embraces phenomena as old as the oldest cultural media. Regardless of whether theatre is recognized as a medium or just a discipline with mediatic properties, the intermedial perspective contributes much fresh insight to our understanding of theatre’s nature and situation in terms of its relationship to other media and practices, particularly those generated by electricity or digital technology. The dynamics of intermediality reflect not only the process of “remediation,” as defined by Bolter and Grusin, but also the kind of remains and residue represented by what Acland called “residual media.” However, one medium can also block the remediating process when the people involved with the affected medium feel that such remediation harms their medium’s interests or identity. This response is what we call “mediatic resistance” — and theatre’s recent history is replete with examples of such reactions. One such example is the extremely slow adoption of sound reproduction technology on theatre stages and in the discipline’s creative processes. This article offers various hypotheses concerning the causes, forms and effects of theatre’s resistance to new media throughout the “Long Century” (1880 – present), i.e., since the electrical revolution successively brought us among other things incandescent lighting and microphones. While the former was universally adopted by Western theatre in the brief space of under 20 years, the latter was held at bay for some 75!