At the Edge of Presence and Absence in an Uncanny Valley: On Rimini Protokoll’s Unheimliches Tal / Uncanny Valley

Item

Titre (article, livre complet, chapitre de livre, publication réseaux sociaux, pageWeb, SiteWeb complet, etc.)
At the Edge of Presence and Absence in an Uncanny Valley: On Rimini Protokoll’s Unheimliches Tal / Uncanny Valley
Auteur de la référence bibliograpique
Melike Akım
Date de publication (AAAA ou AAAA-MM-JJ)
2023
Numéro (revues scientifiques)
50
Maison d'édition / Nom de la revue scientifique / Nom du site Web / Nom de l'institution universitaire (thèses) / Institution d'un rapport, etc.
Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur
Intervalles des pages (articles)
56-65
E-mail de la personne ayant créé cette référence bibliographique
Julie-Michèle Morin
Abstract
<p>Conventional Western theatre is based on the Aristotelian notion of presence. Contemporary theatre, however, proposes an aesthetic of absence. Its orientation differs from the notion of presence found in text-centred Western theatre. This aesthetic model, adopted by contemporary theatre since the 1990s, also appears in various forms in current productions based on digital dramaturgies. Rimini Protokoll, a German theatre company with many experimental approaches, presents an anti-theatrical aesthetic based on absence. This study analyses Rimini Protokoll’s 2018 <em>Unheimliches Tal / Uncanny Valley</em> in terms of removing the human actor from the centre and replacing him with an animatronic robot. This production, which stands out as one of the most striking examples of digital theatre, erases the presence of the human actor on stage with an animatronic copy, proposing an uncanny theatricality that oscillates between presence and absence. To understand how this theatricality is constructed, the concept of the uncanny is analysed in the introductory part of the article through the metaphor of the “uncanny valley.” Subsequently, the academic literature on theatre and the notion of the uncanny is presented, with a particular focus on the metaphor of the ghost. The following section presents Jacques Derrida’s views onWestern theatre, focusing on his concepts of the metaphysics of presence, logocentrism, and hauntology. The article examines <em>Unheimliches Tal / Uncanny Valley</em> in the context of those concepts and then concludes with a consideration of the theatricality of this production in relation to contemporary theatre productions and digital dramaturgies.</p>
doi
10.26650/sdsl2023-1343139
short title
At the Edge of Presence and Absence in an Uncanny Valley
Source
Instanbul University Press Web Site
Date Submitted
2025-03-07T21:11:22Z
is compiled by
ARCANES
Julie-Michèle

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Title Class
Uncanny Valley Event

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