Story layering

Screenshot of Youtube video WFW 2022: Decoratelier, Jozef Wouters INFINI 1 – 18 by Wiener Festwochen (17 March 2022)

Material being in the realm of the visual

I leafed through the thick booklet of the Wiener Festwochen. One piece immediately caught my attention. My eyes stared at magnified layers of textile layers on the stage. The picture was without people. I looked closer, and as far as I could tell, the textiles filled the stage. The tranquillity of these layers impressed me and prompted me to read the title INFINI 1-18 learn who directed this peace, Jozef Wouters. Upon further reading, I learned that “infini” is French and describes a painted scene that unfolds the space from a central perspective. It aims to go beyond the theatre and its set and to stimulate the audience’s imagination. The approach of this piece, in my opinion, a brilliant example of how the material is a natural actor in an architectural environment. The booklet says, “Drawing on concepts by contemporary theatre makers, [Wouters] has been creating an ever-expanding collection of infinis at his workshop since 2016: diverse contributions to his quest for stage landscapes that are of relevance to us today.” For the Wiener Festwochen, artist Jozef Wouters had invited choreographer Amanda Pina to complete the 17 visual stories that already existed. The show would last three and a half hours – a length I usually find far too long for a theatre and frankly avoid. This time, however, I am curious what stories a theatre can tell in nearly four hours without human actors.

It is a Thursday evening on June 2, 2022. As is usual in Vienna in early summer, the evenings are already summery warm. I arrive late, actually almost too late. One of my friends is already waiting outside the Volkstheater. Since we are in a hurry – we are still missing another friend who is also late – we quickly go into the theatre building to see tonight’s event. INFINI-18 it’s called. A few days ago, as we lay in the sun on one of those beautiful sunny afternoons on the Old Danube, I encouraged my two friends to come along and see the play tonight.

When we get our tickets confirmed, we are told to enter the performance through the back entrance rather than the main entrance: “You leave the building, turn right, go straight to the ‘Wurstelstand’ and turn right again right after that. There you will see the stage entrance.” And here we are. I have never consciously seen the Volkstheater from the back, let alone entered from the stage to take a seat in the auditorium. It is a spectacular experience. A staircase leads directly to the stage aisles. While most of the audience is already seated, we stand on the stage and look up. What we see is a gigantic stage machinery: poles, lights and tractive constructions. We exit the stage via one of the two small staircases on the side and take a seat in the 15th row – it’s free seating and not a full house. Most people are seated on parterre, the main seating area, others are spread out in the first circle. Our missing friend joins us at the last minute. The light are dimmed and the show begins.

Conversion of Sis Matthé’s scenery Infini #6 to Anna Rispoli’s Infini #9: Intervallo at the Volkstheater, Vienna

Jozef Wouters takes over the microphone. He is not on stage, but in front of it, next to an overhead projector. There is a transportable screen on the stage, which is not too big. As Jozef begins his performance with an introduction to the site and architecture of the Volkstheater, his colleague shows pictures of it. He speaks in English, with a subtitle in German at the top of the stage. Wouters describes that the show is a play of different artist responding to ‘infini’. The audience is invited to change seats after each scene. I can feel like this dynamic kind of theatrical experience is something completely new for the audience, myself included. After the introductory, the first scene Infini #3 Seldom Real by musician Micheil Soete begins. There is a aesthetic light show and fog, both dancing to electronic music. It is a very aesthetic moving image that I start to fill with association and memories. Within the piece there is a scene where there is a large curtain of beige fabric. It reminds me of sand. My attention is given to the material. The music stops playing and all you hear is the huge layer of fabric slowly moving upwards – the material is heavy, the sound it makes could be associated with a sandstorm. The way the material is staged, it is able to tell a story, to evoke emotions and memories – it becomes a memory itself. Infini #3 ends, the lights slowly come on and the audience is quiet and further tense.

Screenshot of Youtube video WFW 2022: Decoratelier, Jozef Wouters INFINI 1 – 18 by Wiener Festwochen (17 March 2022) showing Infini #8 by Wim Cuyvers

What can be seen at Infini #8 is a large-scale papyrus scroll printed with a text by writer and architect Wim Cuyvers, translated into German by Lotte Hammond. As the scroll slowly moves upward, the individual eye pairs read. No sound or music can be heard. The only thing that can be heard is independent laughter. It depends on the reading speed of the reader – everyone gets to the entertaining parts of the text differently. The reading lasts almost 20 minutes and the most fascinating thing for me is the variety of memories that collide in the silent theatre. Each reader associates different memories with what he/she is reading. Each creates his/her own individual scenery. The papyrus scroll helps not only helps capture emotions, but also provides space for imagination. As the technicians change the scroll text to keep the reading flowing, I watch them carefully touch the material so as not to damage it. This requires a high level of trust on the part of the artist in relation to the team performing their work.

After enjoying the direct view of the stage, we move to the gallery. The change of the seat, i.e., the perspective, draws the attention to the eye of the spectator. I realize that I am not only looking at the stage, but also at the whole toom and the audience. The lights go out again. And one that does not appear out of my head. Infini #4: Annex by choreographer, dancer and curator Michiel Vandevelde begins with the idea of sitting in a rocket and launching into the universe. You lose track of it when the back door on stage disappears and everything is transformed into completely darkness, even the emergency exit signs are hidden. A very special atmosphere is created. The audience listens to only one voice reading texts based on Franco Berardi, Jean-Luc Godard, Hito Steyerl, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and Michiel Vandevelde. One quote sticks in my mind, “Falling is relational – if there is nothing to fall toward, you may not even be aware that you’re falling.” This seems to be the key to my research.

Curtain call order of the technicians at the end of the theatre play

What fascinates me about this three-and-a-haf-hour play are the similarities I experienced during my time as “Digital Mara”, when I looked into a screen and a particular perspective and landscape of the actors involved unfolded to me. In our conversation essay, I describe these moments as Theatrum Mundi – a miniature mechanical theatre that I observed through the lens of an iPad, including the transformation of the scenery as part of the whole. Infini-18 touches upon the different views, shared memories, and collective knowledge that emerges. Since there are no actors, the technicians play a big role interacting with the material the audience gets to see. The stories are told through the visual engagement with material, which I would like to get to the bottom of. What do we associate with material? How do we define relationality? Can we understand material without haptics? I would like to think about unexpected extensions of the material world embedded in a digital and visual world. Assuming the material is in the realm of the visual – is this realm different from the haptic? What would this mean for architecture? In Infini-18, the artists entrust their work to the technical team, carried out by “strangers”. The audience sees the result of different layers of material knowledge. There is something that can only happen live, an atmosphere created by emotions of the actors on stage and the audience. How does the material on stage carry and convey what the audience receives and sends back?

© Phile Deprez at Wiener Festwochen