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Deconstructing the Fourth Wall: Immediacy in Performative Architecture

Hunsaker, Carrie Elizabeth

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2008, MARCH, University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture (Master of).
Art in the age of digital reproduction thrives as a commodity. Freed from its place of origin and consolidated into data, art can be endlessly replayed anywhere, anytime, in an unchanging, reliable form. As a result, one's ability to distinguish authentic art from its representation is becoming more ambiguous and considerably less crucial while the performing arts, one of few art forms that cannot be reproduced or commoditized, is not surprisingly experiencing a crisis of identity. Competing for entertainment dollars, the nature of live performance is now being questioned. Is the live art form becoming irrelevant? Should live performance be spliced with digital media to capture it as data, thus modernizing and validating it? In response to these questions, two current attitudes behind the design of live event space can be observed. The first adopts a purist's stance in perceiving the legacy of the live event to survive only if it stands firmly in opposition to forces of mediation, envisioning live event space as a container for the illusion of spectacle. The other perceives an inevitable demise of live performance in technology's wake and chooses a proactive position, envisioning live event space as a container for a layered, complex multimedia performance. Finding these responses, which either wholly reject or subsume forces of mediation, to be inadequate, this project argues for a third approach that is commensurate to live performance's immediate, unmediated tradition, while at the same time eager to incorporate current technologies as not a mediating force (or conversely a generator of meaningas- spectacle) but rather a necessary tool for event execution. In the design of a performing arts center in the mountains of Boulder County, Colorado, this thesis proposes that the design methodology for live event space should arise out of a sensibility for the immediate, contextual character of live performance that views the building an extension of, rather than a container for, the performance. Recognizing that the inherent authenticity of a live event binds it to its locality and subjects it to its immediate surroundings, this project conceives of architecture as an event – a dynamic confrontation in real time that implicates forces of site and use – rather than a preconceived, static object.
Michael McInturf (Committee Chair)
Tom Bible (Committee Co-Chair)
134 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Hunsaker, C. E. (2008). Deconstructing the Fourth Wall: Immediacy in Performative Architecture [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1212100640

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Hunsaker, Carrie. Deconstructing the Fourth Wall: Immediacy in Performative Architecture. 2008. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1212100640.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Hunsaker, Carrie. "Deconstructing the Fourth Wall: Immediacy in Performative Architecture." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1212100640

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)