The Theater of Electricity

Technology and Spectacle in the Late 19th Century
2023
ISBN: 978-3-476-05963-5
Verlag: J.B. Metzler

Buch, Englisch, 314 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 522 g

Since the 1880s, electrical energies started circulating in European theaters, generated from fossil fuels in urban power plants. A mysterious force, which was still traded as romantic life force by some and for others had already come to stand in for progress, entered performance venues. Engineering knowledge, control techniques and supply chains changed fundamentally how theater was made and thought of. The mechanical image machine from Renaissance and Baroque times was transformed into a thermodynamic engine. Modern theater turned out to be electrified theater. – Retracing what happened backstage before the Avantgarde took to the front stage, this book proposes to write the genealogy of theaters modernity as a cultural history of theater technology.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Otto, Ulf

Fachgebiete

• Technische Wissenschaften Technik Allgemein Technikgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Theater: Technik, Bühnentechnik, Einrichtung
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Theaterregie, Theaterproduktion
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction.- 1. Incandescence: electrical installations and their hygienic legitimation.- 2. Oxidation: material culture and industrialized theater.- 3. Regulators: control techniques and electroaesthetic expectations of salvation.- 4. Fabrication: atmospheres and their technical foundations.- 5. Attractions: Electricity exhibitions and their staging.- 6. Communication: electric media and telegraphic world theater.- 7. Industrial poetry: danced progress and civilization as kaleidoscope.- 8. Luminaries: figurations of technology and desirable projections.- 10. Force fields: Science theater and the spaces of electrical engineering.- 11. Conclusion: aesthetics of electricity.- Bibliography.- List of figures.

Über Autor(innen)

Ulf Otto is Professor of Theater Studies with a focus on intermediality research at the LMU Munich.