Scenographic Intersections Anca Albani

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222 SCENOGRAPHIC INTER sections

Alcina, By Handel, Directed By Anda Tbcaru Hogea, set and stage design, Anca Albani


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Do not worship art let t be... Truth is that art is just an experience. The in which you feel at a happening, your way of being or taking part to it that make your portrait and all this is the work of art. .Through its graphic schemes, such as drawings and arabesques, the psychdelic experience may be compared mystical art or o psychotically art. psychotic drawing show disintegration when mystical art operates with tegration. All these are possible if protagonists meet the audience. Spacewaiting silently and empty to be conquered and transformed by its animtors, in what Ming Cho Lee called a great arena where the : ethic, cour, humanism are reveal and suddenly melting as ghts.The rst interesting thing in the dialogue between the scenographic spaand psychedelic revelations is the dynamic lively force, the spontanespring of colours and lights expressed by by one and received by the othtwo opposed poles, a static and the other dynamic. Speaking about the scnographic space as a psychedelic experience, because no matter what tyof performance will conquered it, the space is part of the scenographic lguage. That is the reason why I chose to speak about the space as a psycdelic experience. It is an artistic movement, which became coherent fromexperience that may be qualify as evasion, addresses to world in an exubant way .Appia considers the trinomial space light actors body as elements leing to the modern theatre renewal. The human body expresses by pure la

guage more directly the intention and the state:The human body is not only mobile it is plastic as well. This plasticity pdirect relationship with architecture and sculpture, with which it may nebe identify, even if it is mobile.Relationship body music becomes a shape in the space, gets dynamand uniqueness if integrated to psychedelic experience. It is a binomiatheatrical expressivity giving life and spontaneity because it is always lbecause it always and the audience takes part enchanted to the shape e evescence in Rythmic space.Corporality is the major characteristics of representation in a limited or limited space. There is a theatre before luxurious world, but there is nobuilding of stones and bricks, it is an edi ce built by the human body.A major characteristic of psychedelic art is its diversity from the plastictechnological point of view and the fact that the body movement is compsory. The art of public representation is done by both, as well as the inpretation and its performance. Its option is obviously for painting, sculptu

lm, light art, media, video, techniques used by the happening or perfmance , theatrical representations and other manifestation that makthem psychedelic. There are four common possibilities in all those art forthey may create rational situation, accepted illusions, modify conscio

SPACE AND PSIHIDELIC DYNAMICSANCA ALBANI


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ness lead to spontaneity.Theatre is the save refuge for a unexpected revolution; o ering unlimitatepossibilities to reveal spontaneity at the experimental level.There are just a few passive, static or contemplative elements. This art be-longs to Dionysus, it is challenging and active, never static.It is an artistic trend operating with the famous mandale spreading and dem-onstrating that it always operates with geometrical space. It evokes the Su-preme Being, who carries a bright light. It is an interaction between macro-cosms and microcosms. This art is religious, mystical, Gods representationin All. Space dominated by the psychedelic experience identi es itself withdynamism the action being completed by the atmosphere. There are solidarguments in favour of a solid research of the scenographic space If the psy-chedelic experience identify itself with space and action. Harold Rosenbergsaid: Action is the sense of discovery on the stage and behind the stage. Ifsomebody cares about the answer this would come from by brain. If I werebe able to write the answer, to paint it, or to interpret it, that would change.What is supposed to be done is the key for the future thought.On this new eld of psychedelic experience, opened to all possibilities, thereare only researchers on unknown elds nding profound or super cial, trea-sure or junks, probably hardly di erent A selection was made among allthese explorers among whom there are artists, philosophers and scholars.Some of them such as: Isaac Abrams, Arlene Sklar Weinstein and Allen At-well have their style marked by the psychedelic consciousness Others likeMati Klarwein got clear surrealistic in uences from the Fantastic RealismSchool of Vienna. So does Frederic Pardo whose work is also in uenced bythe surrealism and the occultism of their work. There are some of Peter Maxsworks which shows the in uence of the psychedelic art too. Arlene Aklar Weinstein o ers lights birth (vision), mythological gures and the secret releit motiv. Abrams, paint in a personal manner The One versus the la Becom-ing Dance which in never ending numbers of shapes nds the Unit. AllenAtwell shows a strong organic mysticism suggesting human representationsand shapes in Blakes style.If the gates of perception were be transparent, everything would show asit is, the in nite itself. For him everything is dark, since he would be able todiscover everything, through his narrow cave

A major step in psychedelic art can be discovered in Francis Lees cinemasconcepts. In a major project experiment ( lm) the artist tries to explaina psychedelic meeting. During the lm a icon with hardly understandableshapes appears, progressively it gains symbolic traces. He tries to suggestthe deep consciousness steps, more and more complex, leading to attitudessimilar to the drugs Cinema succded clear performances in showing such


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experiences in Stern, Jud Yalkut or Cassen, work.Their movies o er a psychedelic experience over all other artistic events,with positive aesthetic feedback if everything is lead to enriching experience.Jud Yalkut o ers un other vision of psychidelic experience, using a methodto show the deepnes of feelings and senses, implicating the spectaor by aoverstimulating his senses spe. The im maker intention comes from a seriesof movies like Noi eram la Biverside, in which the public is bombed with a lotof noises, colours and lights, in a rapid succession, deforming time and spaceperception.Psychedelic art is the art of light and that is why a large number of artistsare using light under di erent shapes and means, such as light projected onwalls or screens. Having various colours which melts suggesting by videoshows theatre performances opera, ballet or incoherent representations likethose of beginning of psychedelic artVideo projections used during the performance may induce a special feel-ing, one desired by the artist, no matter if a director or a stage designer. Forexample a video-projection with the image of the sea may create a hypnoticfeeling. Reality break due to dreams because of music, text, visual showbrings the spectators in a virtual space with simulated reality.This empirical parade of images indicates, as rituals and initiates steps, thein nity of spirit. Adolph Appia considers that light is the main element whichcombines all the elements of a show and he constantly tried to put togeth-er music, stage movement and drama, in order to create mystical aspectsthrough light - design.The spectator sinks into those clichs as when watching the re, hypnotice ect which may enchant certain persons. Despite cinema theories, thosevideo projections have no end or beginning Those artists were called lightartists the best being Thomas Wilfred and his coloured music..Spatiality is connected to unconventional rituals and consists of masks pa-rades, disguised characters, the joy and the drunkenness anticipating life af-ter death. In Euripides play we have a testimony of great importance whatcould be the meeting between the Greek genius and Dionysus orgies. Psy-chedelic dynamism conquers a conventional space - scenographical spaceand an unknown territory - street parades. In both cases the public turns intoa protagonist because the text and the actor induce a state of joy Dionysus

himself became a protagonist for the rst time in the Greek theatre.After all we are talking about a life experience, a psycho-drama as JacobL. Moreno called it. In psycho drama the actor interprets an experience,by action, engering his body on the stage, as a group therapy, constitutingthe so called psycho-setting psihod. Psychodrama operates with the body,the space is an arena, both creating a visual live performance. The body isa simple object that a person may use independently to ful l his aims and


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dreams. The theatre performance using directly the means of body exsivity, navigates on a conventional territory. The public take part in a way to the performers acts. When Robert Wilson, stage, Woyzeck by Bchner, in Hamburg the characters became expressive due to the corpexpressivity.There are artists who have been used all the plastic and visual expretechniques to ful l the psychedelic experience: Jachie Cassen, Rudie Don Snyder, USCO group , artists whose aim is to create feelings thathe public to live an intensive participation. They project movies, use musical expression dancers, stereoscope, oscilloscope, all type of soheart beats, screaming, laughing breathing space is transformed, dominas the arena All these are a proof of intense concentration on the conThe Bacchantes or Dionysus holidays are archaic ceremonies known the world. Phalophoria preceded Dionysus cult and can be assimilapsychedelic experience.All this fact addresses mainly to psychic, central nervous system, beimages used by those artists indicates their intention in addressing to pbecause the images projected in movies are worlds in collision, wars, en giving birth, visual with high emotional potential, evocative in psycnamic terms. The modi cation of object from colour to shape, propowas a target, gurative (people) appear in senseless sequences, due toartists desire to induce a psychedelic state.Intense interior state, without spiritual meaning may generate exclusdecorative and senseless motives. An excite artist may create sinuous dings expressing his feelings of being lost or prisoner. Psychedelic drawing do not shaw any symptoms of disintegration, even if the draware without beginning or end and indicates obsession and restriction.Mary Bernard on a study about religious believes functions in secret sies said in The American Scholar: We may ask ourselves how a beliefpreme being, when the soul apart of our body and free of the time and slimits should know the feeling of extreme happiness, is previous to thcidental discovery of hallucinogenic plants which give a feeling of euchanges the notion of time and space, extending them to endless hori(....) It may be said that it is a direct revelation

New archetypes are look up in sacared science, one that suits the neemodern society The psychedelic journey reaches a sacred art similar stasy, revealing the rich multidimensional of consciousness .Allan Kaprow creates a type of happening which does not belong tpsychedelic zone, but de nes itself as its own form of art working togAn art of happening is an experience of a group of people, a spectaculvironment and the experience consists not in the event understanding

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in taking part to it and creating a whole. A happening in which everything isintegrated indicates a total freedom.The art of happening generates a permanent spontaneity and revels the ar-tiss concept transforming him in a game leader and the scenographic spaceinto a breath. Even if we are in the middle of a study about space and psy-chedelic experience, the fact that happening is away of living with or withoutnarcotics.Because it is using a lot of new forms of expression, Happening may be con-sidered way of enlarging the consciousness by multiplying the experience.Each of us may feel the change of his own way of perception, the importantfact being to break the barrier of restriction, especially the mental ones. Al-lan Kaprows happening may not be considered as having psychedelic ten-dencies, because he determines the actors to enter in his game modifyingthe conditions around him, and the psychedelic experience creats the accessto the consciousness inside. An artist creating a happening uses experienceas a tool, and he may choose the psychidelic experience as well as a painteruses colour or a sculptor stone or wood.Besides artistic events such as happening or performance art, art mod,video art, painting, sculpture, drama etc. art in general takes it force froma general experience, which tries by all its intensity to transform and enrichthe hum an personality Psychedelic experience develops freely without anydi culty due to objective or subjective factors exploiting deeper and deeperlevels of consciousness, operating with sensorial, memory and analysis on asymbolic plan, concentrating on the body, any physical process is feltThe most relevant thing o ered by Allen Atwell is what we call today Art Mod . It is a form of art presenting psychedelic experience. Art Mod de-stroys completely the individual as any reference to the environment, mak-ing a confusion between him and the new reality he has to live, an imagina-tion imposed by the artist as a spectator. The common part of happeningand Art Mod, is due to their power to change the man idea about himself,a reaction to freedom and desinhibition. Both artistic branches have in com-mon the power of inducing illusion as it is accepted by people as a mark of su-perior reactions compared to everyday life. All are generating critical states,complete breakings to daily experience.Light Art as mention previously is an art where artists exploit and light as a

way of expression for shape creation and deep understanding of new humanexperiences There are artists as Jackie Cassen, Rudi Stern or Don Snyderwhoconsider light as a pychidelic experience, fact that made their art psyche-delic. For this reason light become a new way of expression in performance,happening and Art Mod It is appropriate for it because it dymanic and usescolours and allows the artist to use di erent duration for any drawing. This


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way of expressing developed in the second half of the XX, cannot replacetraditional techniques as painting, graphics or sculpture, but is necessary fornew experiencesThe movie can be considered as a way of expression for psychedelic experi-ence and it was studied from this perspective by the surrealists The surre-alist cinema start with Cocteau and Man Ray anticipating the contempo-rary movie evolution. At the beginning the lm was but a lmed theatre, itevolved in surrealism as a dynamic means of transport for images, used bypsychedelic artist if he is able to create an intimate space inside four walls.The tendency is to qualify any dynamic projection as psychedelic only if it be-longs to avant-garde, a movie is considered good only if an avant-garde one.Such examples may be found at Tony Conrad in Flicker. Tony Conrad is anAmerican video avant-garde lm maker, musician, composer, sound artist,professor and writer The Flicker was included in the exhibition of WhitneyMuseum of American Arts, The American Century.The Flicker (1966), is his most important movie, which revolutionised theworld of experimental lml as a landmark of structural lm. It presents blackand white images which as pointed in the title creates ashes when project-ed. When it was watched for the rst time by a larger number of persons gotsick because of the ashes. Since then Conrad started to work in video andperformance Arts, and since 1970 as a professor at Antioch College, Ohioand at Media Centre for Media Studies, Bu alo University.Even if personal watching creates the impression of a relevant vision on a

lm a minimum description of this experimental move should be done. The

lm consists of ve frames, a warrning frame, two frames as titles, a blackframe and a white one.an important element is the the soundtrack-ul cre-ated by the artist in order to accompany this experimental lm. The Flickerstatrs with a warrning message d, WARNING, through for the public tellingthat it may produce epiileptical simptomes or shocks, so they should knowthat they may stay inside the theatre on their own .Psychidelic art is a success if it uses simultaneously more artistic means andthe artist uses at the same time several artistic means creating a unity, if notthe whole atempt is a failure. Combining several techniques does not alwaysmean psychidelic art. The term refers to a description not to a jugement.The largest part of pychidelic work tries to recreate the e ect of such anexperience. They determin situations of sezorial overloading and symbolism,without logic , simultaneous image e ects, giving to each one the sensationof being in his own body, watching the unknown nature.The experiment Electric Circus, New Yorker disco is a good example of gath-ering many technical means, a place where the stage design is made of aserie of some spontaneous images craeted in in the spectators own headand previous images.They are images induced by free plan with special pro-jections special slides. They use the so called Ultramedia technique, createdby Antony Martin for Electric Circus. They present abstract movements com-


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bined with images whose rithmis corelated with white lights of the stro-boscoape. It is a relationship between visual and musical media. It may besaid that at Electric Circus there is a psychidelic experience because theprojections are always psychidelic due to their source of inspiration as longas they are molecular, celular or organic.The presentation of psychidelic art should be not complete without thepresentation of psychidelic music because as long as the cinema had thisexperience , music used it. I qute John Cage who uses the new musicallanguage and calls it a controlled distorsiune . His music take into consider-ation the following orgnising criteria : non-rational organisation and illogi-cal structures. He created live electronic music for the coreographer MerceCunningham.One thing is clear painting, sculpture, ne arts in general, mainly happeningor performance art uses music as a working tool . I thought of the samething in the project regressus ad uterum where the oject installation isaccompanied by lm images some of them unpleasant, taking the role ofthe ritual of regression ab origine as a mature charcater not as a fetus. Ev-erything happens in very quick rithm of heartbeat and tribal sounds. TristanTzara said about psychidelic music that it is a music which translates andexpress the experiences of a psychidelic experience and it tries to show bysound the impression given by a psychidelic experience.Music as the psychidelic experience has the power to broke the rules of thedaily life inducing a an overloaded senzorial e ect by acclerating the wayof thinking which creates a large number of images , impossible to take

place in average time. The diversity of images cannot be compareed to any-hthing, not even dreams. Music and happening are real art and many crit-ics consider them like that, even if their relationship with psychidelic art isnot clearly de ned. .Jean Jacques Lebel, visual artist , writers, and lm-maker is the author ofthe most vivid and interesting happening-of Europa.He uses simple sym-bols to mirror the psychidelic experience .He used sugar lamps falling asavalances over undressed women. The artist himself considered these per-formances simlar to Dyonisus holidays, as manifestation of subconsiounessto which society is redundant even in contemporary times Those barrierswere not broken but the performances were a shock, agreed by a smallnumber of specialis, more or less initiated, considering that such a happen-ing would have a high TV rating .In the same way the use of narcotics determined the creation of images im-possible to be done with other means.n acelai Arlenei Sklar s and IsaacAbrams testimony are clear when describing that type of creative pocess.Both before having a LSD experience created a rational art. Abrams saidthat he swa the world only in a rational way. The halucinogen experimenthelped him to discover another side of world, revealing its sacred aspets.Everything revealing the spirit, behaid or aside logic is part of the artists


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new tendences.Psychidelic Art was considered a surprise because drawings seem to come out of the paper as if they werehidden there. I do not think that the narrcotics are necessary but I think that is necessary to know other expe-rience in the eld, no matter which archaic paintings, tribal music dangerous initiating experiences There areartists familiar with such processes, recognising the value of creation, no matter if it is born of a psychidelicexperience, a self controlled exercise or practice of tao and oriental painters .Narcotics may induce the spacial creation state only if the subject has a passed over a certain evolution andit may help him to get ridd of certain frustrations An unique example is that of Allen Atwell, who painted inan apartament in Est - New York, a psychidelic temple and the common space turned into a sacred one fullof symbols . It is a wanderful work of art inspiring a marvelous atmosphere, covering all the walls, showing amystical revelation according to his own testimony the artist worked in Orient and he uses the traditional teh-niques of Tibet masters, mentaly projecting his visions on a surface in front of his eyes and re-painting themon canvas after that. His temple from East New York should be understood as a sacred palace evocative for anampli ed consciousness. He uses sacred mandalas to crown the re place as well as icons and other religioussymbols. The whole rooms is turned into a spiritual organism.It may be said that psychedelic art is profound and super cial, rude and exquisite, simple and complex. Allpsychedelic works show a real unit and a deep signi cation in connection with the artists personality.Prod-ucts which transform the artists mind such as peyotl, mescalina, LSD, are just activating mental processes.Among the most iportant psychedelic experiences the content of the unconsciousness may be quoted, think-ing becomes more exible and intense, symbols and myths interacts and determines fabulous concepts It maybe asked if artists, even those without imagination would be able to creationist images in a unselfconsciousstate. A scienti c answer is given by psychologists, other our own artistic experience, o matter the domanin.Personally I think that there is no need of narcotic experience to create unbelievable beautiful works of art .In any case artist experience should be mixed with the way in which psychedelic experience is perceived. Thereceiver would always be redundant to eccentric experiences based on symbolism of sacred and sign.Psychiatrists consider that under the e ect of narcotics such as LSD, artists may perceive reality in a di erentway and then they will express it in their work. Certainly there is an experience in which the real experiencecannot be recognised and that is why one may ask if it is not just a temporary one, because the artist whenlucid is not able to use the same creation means It is a similar situation compared to that of archetypal secretsocietiesThe situation is a little bit similar to that of archaic secret societies were sacred herbs determine such stage,but the di erence is that they use them to perform special rituals for passage and initiation in order to reacha superior life stage, previous to that experience.Gerald Heard wrote in Psychedelic Review: May LSD brings an important contribution to the creative pro-cess? Even if taken in best conditions it may not have other role then that to produce an experience (terminol-

ogy used by Aristotle when studding the Greek Mysteries). As consequence the subject may himself exploitthat reference eld , this creative scheme.

There is no annalist that can go further then his own complexions and inner frustrationsFreud (1910)

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Scenographic Intersections Anca Albani

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