Dépression du spectacle de la sur-nature : réflexions autour du travail de Diane Thater

Résumé

La vidéographie intéressée par la question du spectacle pose la question de l’histoire du développement technologique et de son rôle dans la constitution du sujet moderne. Les installations vidéo de Diana Thater doivent être perçues comme une pratique de dépression de la relation (post)moderne entre subjectivité et technologie. L’objectif du présent article est double. D’abord, cerner les possibilités actuelles de mise en scène critique du spectacle. Ensuite, voir en quoi les stratégies esthétiques de dépression de l’image électronique se rapportent aux mutations de la subjectivité contemporaine en cours depuis les années 60.

Abstract

When video art speculates on the question of the spectacle, it questions the history of technological development and its role in the constitution of modern subject. Diana Thater’s video installations must be seen as a practice which depresses the (post)modern relationship between subjectivity and technology. Two main objectives underlie the present In this article we propose to shed light upon certain modalities at work in the “ théâtre de l’image ”, in an attempt to understand how this theatre, creator of multi-dimensional images, is altering drastically the spectators’ viewing process and their traditional relationship with the performance. To do so, we will draw upon examples from Vinci, a play emblematic of the work of author, director, filmmaker and actor, Robert Lepage, well-known in Quebec as a veritable “ faiseur d’images ”. Our choice is based on the fact that this is a work by a prolific and versatile artist that is not only representative of the new poetics that seem to spring from the computer age and the media culture, but that provides as well a fertile site for an evaluation of the epistemological consequences of an intersection of media in contemporary cultural production and of the way in which the “ théâtre de l’image ” participates in a renewal of the process of writing and of thinking.