In between stage and screen: The intermedial in Katie Mitchell's…some trace of her

ABSTRACT

Where theatre was not dependent on a projector and screen for the manifestation of its fictitious worlds, cinema had to rely on such equipment for its representation of moving photographic images. In so doing, cinema could achieve what theatre could only allude to with the help of costumes, set design and the general consensus of the audience: a representation of the world itself. Nevertheless, this ability of cinematicity could only be achieved at the price of a temporal and existential disjunction between actor and spectator — a matter that did not occur in theatre as a result of its liveness. What happens, though, when the two media are brought together; when theatre's stage becomes the backstage for cinema, and cinema's construction is a live performance? This article analyses Katie Mitchell's intermedial performance…some trace of her (2008) through an examination of the distinction between cinematic and theatrical art forms. The authors look at the amalgamation of the theatrical space with the cinematic space, examining what intermedial approaches to artistic creation have on the performing and visual arts and their spectatorial experiences. For this, they reflect on Mitchell's controversially received work through the prism of existential phenomenology, examining the ontological implications of the performance's intermediality.

KEYWORDS:

• Katie Mitchell
• theatre
• digital cinema
• intermediality
• spectatorship/voyeurism
• media temporality