Today’s Cake is a Log: Remediating the Intermediality of Hotel Pro Forma’s Works in an Exhibition
Affiliation: Stockholm University, SE
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Affiliation: Stockholm University, SE
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Chapter from the book: Petersson, S et al. 2018. The Power of the In-Between: Intermediality as a Tool for Aesthetic Analysis and Critical Reflection.
This article explores intermediality not only as an aesthetic strategy for theatre itself, but also regarding how this strategy can be remediated and applied to another medium: a performative exhibition. The case explored here is the Danish performance theatre company Hotel Pro Forma and their exhibition Today’s Cake is a Log (2015), produced for the company’s thirtieth anniversary. We argue that the exhibition remediates the company’s aesthetical strategy in such a way that it transforms the theatre spectator into a performer, who thereby embodies and assimilates the theatre’s aesthetic strategy through performative acts during the visit to the exhibition. The analysis is contextualized: first, by a presentation of intermediality theory developed for theatre and performance; second, by an introduction of Hotel Pro Forma, its artistic project and intermedial aesthetics exemplified through staging devices and performances. Finally the analysis of the performance exhibition through the experience of the visitor is presented.