Installation Art and the Issue of Gentrification: Exploring the Expanded Scenography of Zelige Door on Golborne Road

Abstract

The concept of expanded scenography is applied to the analysis of the design and public interaction with the multisensory digital art installation Zelige Door on Golborne Road. This is an attempt to re-think visual and live art practices with communities and the creation of immersive digital environments in terms of a “scenographic ecology of relations.” The analysis aims to reconceptualise the field of environmental-centric live performance in the digital context by exploring an art installation designed to facilitate a synchronic dialogue amongst different design elements and participants on issues related to the aesthetics of the place, urban development, Community Memories, heritage and migration. Concepts such as participatory dramaturgy and remediation will be employed to analyse and theoretically locate the expanded scenography of relations of Zelige Door on Golborne Road within the wider context of activist actions in Britain aimed at preserving and making visible the intangible heritage of migrant communities in contested urban areas undergoing gentrification.

Notes

1 J. McKinney and S. Palmer (eds.), Scenography Expanded: An Introduction to Contemporary Performance Design, London and New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017.

2 S. Lotker and R. Gough, “On Scenography: Editorial”, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, Vol. 18, No. 3, 2013, p. 3. https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2013.818306.

3 A. Aronson, The History and Theory of Environmental Scenography, 2nd edition, London: Methuen Drama, 2018.

4 C. Baugh, Theatre, Performance and Technology: The Development and Transformation of Scenography, 2nd Edition, New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2013, p. 224.

5 Baugh, 2013, p. 240.

6 A. Terracciano, “7 Cities in 7 Minutes: A Feminine Paradigm of Sensory Art”, Body, Space & Technology, Vol. 16, 2017. http://doi.org/10.16995/bst.8. Accessed 15 April 2020.

7 Aldaterra Projects, Zelige Door on Golborne Road, available at: https://aldaterra.com/alda-terracciano/works/zelige-door-on-golborne-road/. Accessed 15 April 2020.

8 L. Bannon, J. Bardzell, and S. Bødker, “Reimagining Participatory Design”, Interactions, Vol. XXVI, No. 1, January–February 2019, pp. 26–32, available at: https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/january-february-2019/reimagining-participatory-design#R8. Accessed 15 April 2020.

9 Bannon, Bardzell, and Bødker, 2019, p. 31.

10 T. Beer, L. Fu, and C. Hernández-Santín, “Scenographer as Placemaker: Co-Creating Communities Through the Living Stage NYC”, Theatre and Performance Design, Vol. 4, No. 4, 2018, pp. 343–344.

11 Baugh, 2013, p. 235.

12 J. D. Bolter and R. Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media, Cambridge, MA and London, UK: MIT Press, 1999.

13 This was developed in line with the theory of Third Paradigm HCI, based on Sandra Harding’s concept of successor science project. These dimensions of the project will not be further explored here. For the interested reader I recommend the following references: S. Harrison, P. Sengers, and D. Tatar, “Making Epistemological Trouble: Third-Paradigm HCI as Successor Science”, Interacting with Computers, Vol. 23, No. 5, 2011, pp. 385–392. S. Harding, “The Instability of the Analytical Categories of Feminist Theory”, Signs, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1986, pp. 645–664.

14 Harrison, Sengers, and Tatar, 2011, p. 391.

15 Harrison, Sengers, and Tatar, 2011, p. 389.

16 Baugh, 2013, p. 235.

17 A. Terracciano, “Intangible Heritage and the Built Environment: Using Multisensory Digital Interfaces to Map Migrants Memories”, in A. Dellios and E. Henrich (eds.), Diasporic, Migrant and Multicultural Heritage (Key Issues in Cultural Heritage), London: Routledge, 2020.

18 See T. Berners-Lee, “The Web can be Weaponised – and We can’t Count on Big Tech to Stop It”, The Guardian, 12 March 2018.

19 A. Aronson, The History and Theory of Environmental Scenography, 2nd edition, London: Methuen Drama, 2018, p. 14.

20 A. Aronson, “Forward”, in McKinney and Palmer, 2017, p. xvi.

21 A. Aronson, “Forward”, in McKinney and Palmer, 2017, p. xvi.

22 Tate Modern, Producing Memory: Maps, Materials, Belongings, 2018, available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/tate-exchange/workshop/producing-memory-maps-materials-belongings. Accessed 15 April 2020.

23 For an in-depth analysis of olfactory technologies and their applications see, T. Nakamoto (ed.), Human Olfactory Displays and Interfaces: Odour Sensing and Presentation, Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference, 2013.

24 Baugh, 2013, p. 233.

25 S. Di Benedetto, “Cognitive Approaches to Performance Design or How the Dead Materialize and Other Spectacular Design Solutions,” in McKinney and Palmer, 2017, p. 157.

26 S. Di Benedetto, “Scenography and the Senses. Engaging the Tactile, Olfactory and Gustatory Senses,” in A. Aronson (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Scenography, London and New York: Routledge, 2017, p. 75.

27 Di Benedetto, “Scenography and the Senses”, 2017, p. 76.

28 Lotker and Gough, 2013, p. 3

29 M. Bordegoni, M. Carulli, and F. Ferrise, “Improving Multisensory User Experience through Olfactory Stimuli”, in Shuichi Fukuda (ed.), Emotional Engineering, Vol. 7. The Age of Communication, Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2019.

30 D. Shearing, “Audience, Immersion, Mindfulness and the Experience of Scenography”, in McKinney and Palmer, 2017, p. 144.

31 Aldaterra Projects, Community Participant 4, Moroccan Men Memory Session, 20 November 2016.

32 C. Salter, “Participation, Interaction, Atmosphere, Projection”, in A. Aronson (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Scenography, New York and London: Routledge, 2017, p. 164.

33 Salter, 2017, p. 163.