An attempt to categorise the new scenography that is born when new media meet the stage.

Abstract

Contemporary theatre is using cinema and the emerging new technologies; incorporating them in it as a part of its set design and stage direction. While artists are researching the relationship between theatre and cinema, a new form of art emerges and is embraced in the European theatres, where the set design transforms into a new kind of scenography. In this meeting of arts and technology, this new scenography needs to be explored: what are the new requirements for a set designer? Can we attempt a categorisation / classification to understand this new scenography?
This paper aspires to present the early work of a long process of an overview of the European spectacles that incorporate the new technologies in such a way that a new form of art is created; this work will show us the characteristics of each category.
The main axe for this categorisation is dramaturgy. From the way each story is narrated, three categories of scenography become clear: the one that supports the narration, the one that is independent of any other narration, and the one that is by itself the narration. These three categories are analysed and researched through a set of examples illustrating each category. Other factors to be taken into consideration are the aesthetics of art, the difference between the process of the artist and the final product, the evolution of technology making things unimaginable in the past,
possible for the contemporary artists, and lastly, the ethics following such extensive use of technology.